{"639781":{"#nid":"639781","#data":{"type":"news","title":"VoterTech VIP Students Lead Effort to Inform, Engage, Would-Be Campus Voters","body":[{"value":"\u003Cp\u003EBy Michael Pearson\u003C\/p\u003E\r\n\r\n\u003Cp\u003EHailey Park, a third-year computer science student from Roswell, knows how complicated voting can be.\u003C\/p\u003E\r\n\r\n\u003Cp\u003E\u0026ldquo;There were a lot of moments when I felt overwhelmed by the sheer amount of information out there, and I didn\u0026rsquo;t know if the information I was consuming was factual,\u0026rdquo; she\u0026nbsp;said.\u003C\/p\u003E\r\n\r\n\u003Cp\u003ENow, Park is part of the VoterTech Vertically Integrated Project (VIP), an interdisciplinary, cross-college, and student-led research team at the Georgia Institute of Technology. It works to help make it easier for the diverse student body to register and vote.\u003C\/p\u003E\r\n\r\n\u003Cp\u003EIt is getting the job done with all the hallmarks of a typical Georgia Tech project: in-depth research, good organization, and technology, according to \u003Ca href=\u0022https:\/\/www.iac.gatech.edu\/people\/faculty\/barke\u0022\u003ERichard Barke\u003C\/a\u003E, a professor in the Ivan Allen College of Liberal Art\u0026rsquo;s \u003Ca href=\u0022https:\/\/spp.gatech.edu\/\u0022\u003ESchool of Public Policy\u003C\/a\u003E and one of five instructors who mentor the VIP team members.\u003C\/p\u003E\r\n\r\n\u003Cp\u003E\u0026ldquo;The voting process is becoming technologically intense, as we\u0026rsquo;re seeing in this current iteration, so it makes sense to see what we can do using technology to address some of the problems with elections and voting,\u0026rdquo; Barke said.\u003C\/p\u003E\r\n\r\n\u003Cp\u003EAs Georgia\u0026rsquo;s Oct. 5 registration deadline draws near, the team is developing technologies to help voters find information about registration, ballot information, and early and absentee voting.\u003C\/p\u003E\r\n\r\n\u003Cp\u003E\u0026ldquo;This project takes place during an important election,\u0026rdquo; said \u003Ca href=\u0022https:\/\/www.vip.gatech.edu\/teams\/votertech\u0022\u003EVoterTech\u003C\/a\u003E member Caleb Torres, a third-year public policy student from Atlanta. Torres also is chief of staff for Georgia Tech\u0026rsquo;s Undergraduate Student Government Association. \u0026ldquo;Younger voters, including college students, are turning out in record numbers to the polls, and we want to help ensure every voter is as knowledgeable as possible.\u0026rdquo;\u003C\/p\u003E\r\n\r\n\u003Cp\u003EThe team of 18 students has split into four groups, each working on a specific issue: One team concentrates on collecting ballot information. The second is working on voter registration efforts. Another team has built a website, \u003Ca href=\u0022https:\/\/vote.cae.gatech.edu\/\u0022 target=\u0022_blank\u0022\u003Ehttps:\/\/vote.cae.gatech.edu\u003C\/a\u003E, and the fourth is working on a smartphone app.\u003C\/p\u003E\r\n\r\n\u003Cp\u003EThe website offers a simple step-by-step approach to registering to vote or voting, with vetted links to registration sites and information about requesting absentee ballots or finding polling places, in Georgia and across the United States.\u003C\/p\u003E\r\n\r\n\u003Cp\u003EIt also provides links to election protection information and what to do if a voter had to cast a provisional ballot.\u003C\/p\u003E\r\n\r\n\u003Cp\u003EVeteran VIP organizer \u003Ca href=\u0022https:\/\/biosciences.gatech.edu\/people\/jennifer-leavey\u0022\u003EJennifer Leavey\u003C\/a\u003E, principal academic professional in the College of Sciences, organized VoterTech last year. Leavey is not an expert in politics but wanted to help spark excitement in voting among Georgia Tech students.\u003C\/p\u003E\r\n\r\n\u003Cp\u003E\u0026ldquo;It took a while for the students to tease out what they wanted to work on, but now they are really taking off,\u0026rdquo; Leavey said.\u003C\/p\u003E\r\n\r\n\u003Cp\u003EIn addition to Leavey and Barke, the faculty and staff team includes \u003Ca href=\u0022https:\/\/www.iac.gatech.edu\/people\/faculty\/ledantec\u0022\u003EChristopher Le Dantec\u003C\/a\u003E, an associate professor in the School of Interactive Computing and the Ivan Allen College\u0026rsquo;s School of Literature, Media, and Communication; Recha Reid, a political scientist and interim assistant director for student innovation and undergraduate\u0026nbsp;research in the Office of Undergraduate Education; and Nicole Leonard, advising and outreach manager in the Georgia Tech Honors Program.\u003C\/p\u003E\r\n\r\n\u003Cp\u003E\u0026ldquo;The work that these students have done demystifies the voting process for students,\u0026rdquo; Leonard said.\u003C\/p\u003E\r\n\r\n\u003Cp\u003EReid noted the students\u0026rsquo; work is already serving as a \u0026ldquo;critical hub\u0026rdquo; for their peers.\u003C\/p\u003E\r\n\r\n\u003Cp\u003E\u0026ldquo;Our VIP\u0026nbsp;students have surpassed all expectations with their hard work and creativity to expand the tools we have to inform voters and increase voter turnout among Georgia Tech students,\u0026rdquo; Reid said.\u003C\/p\u003E\r\n\r\n\u003Cp\u003EThe November election is far from the end for VoterTech. Le Dantec expects the experience with this cycle will give the team a clear idea of the challenges students face in engaging in elections. This data will help inform what the group decides to do going forward.\u003C\/p\u003E\r\n\r\n\u003Cp\u003E\u0026ldquo;This election season will give us a lot more runway to think more expansively about different kinds of technology solutions we might develop to help in future elections,\u0026rdquo; said Le Dantec, an expert in \u003Ca href=\u0022https:\/\/dm.lmc.gatech.edu\/research\/civic-media\/\u0022\u003Edigital civics\u003C\/a\u003E.\u003C\/p\u003E\r\n\r\n\u003Cp\u003EWilliam Wilson, a second-year computer science student from Memphis, Tenn., is a member of the VIP\u0026rsquo;s registration team. He always wanted to do more to encourage students to vote and found his outlet in VoterTech.\u003C\/p\u003E\r\n\r\n\u003Cp\u003E\u0026ldquo;The reaction by students has been overwhelming,\u0026rdquo; he said. \u0026ldquo;Students seem really excited to vote, and we hope our project can add to that.\u0026rdquo;\u003C\/p\u003E\r\n\r\n\u003Cp\u003EIn addition to the website, the team also is sharing information on \u003Ca href=\u0022https:\/\/www.facebook.com\/VoterTechGT\u0022\u003EFacebook \u003C\/a\u003Eand \u003Ca href=\u0022https:\/\/www.instagram.com\/gtvotertech\/\u0022\u003EInstagram\u003C\/a\u003E.\u003C\/p\u003E\r\n\r\n\u003Ch2\u003EAbout VIPs\u003C\/h2\u003E\r\n\r\n\u003Cp\u003EStudents participating in \u003Ca href=\u0022https:\/\/www.vip.gatech.edu\/\u0022\u003EVertically Integrated Projects\u003C\/a\u003E work in multidisciplinary teams on projects that span multiple semesters, receiving academic credit\u0026nbsp;and invaluable experience as they apply their academic skills to real-world projects.\u003C\/p\u003E\r\n\r\n\u003Cp\u003EThe concept was founded in 2001 at Purdue University by \u003Ca href=\u0022https:\/\/www.ece.gatech.edu\/faculty-staff-directory\/edward-j-coyle\u0022\u003EEdward J. Coyle\u003C\/a\u003E, who has been on faculty in Georgia Tech\u0026rsquo;s\u0026nbsp;School of Electrical and Computer Engineering since 2008.\u003C\/p\u003E\r\n\r\n\u003Cp\u003EVIPs have since been adopted at 36 universities worldwide. Georgia Tech, a leader in the VIP Consortium, has one of the world\u0026rsquo;s most extensive programs.\u003C\/p\u003E\r\n","summary":null,"format":"limited_html"}],"field_subtitle":"","field_summary":[{"value":"\u003Cp\u003EThe VoterTech Vertically Integrated Project (VIP) team is developing technologies to help voters find information about registration, ballot information, and early and absentee voting.\u003C\/p\u003E\r\n","format":"limited_html"}],"field_summary_sentence":[{"value":"The VoterTech Vertically Integrated Project (VIP) team is developing technologies to help voters find information about registration, ballot information, and early and absentee voting."}],"uid":"34600","created_gmt":"2020-09-30 21:42:35","changed_gmt":"2020-10-01 16:15:50","author":"mpearson34","boilerplate_text":"","field_publication":"","field_article_url":"","dateline":{"date":"2020-09-30T00:00:00-04:00","iso_date":"2020-09-30T00:00:00-04:00","tz":"America\/New_York"},"extras":[],"hg_media":{"639780":{"id":"639780","type":"image","title":"VoterTech","body":null,"created":"1601501882","gmt_created":"2020-09-30 21:38:02","changed":"1601555380","gmt_changed":"2020-10-01 12:29:40","alt":"","file":{"fid":"243232","name":"VoterTech graphic final.jpg","image_path":"\/sites\/default\/files\/images\/VoterTech%20graphic%20final_0.jpg","image_full_path":"http:\/\/hg.gatech.edu\/\/sites\/default\/files\/images\/VoterTech%20graphic%20final_0.jpg","mime":"image\/jpeg","size":234070,"path_740":"http:\/\/hg.gatech.edu\/sites\/default\/files\/styles\/740xx_scale\/public\/images\/VoterTech%20graphic%20final_0.jpg?itok=crhJW5gy"}}},"media_ids":["639780"],"groups":[{"id":"1281","name":"Ivan Allen College of Liberal Arts"},{"id":"1283","name":"School of Literature, Media, and Communication"},{"id":"1289","name":"School of Public Policy"}],"categories":[{"id":"129","name":"Institute and Campus"}],"keywords":[{"id":"185960","name":"VoterTech"},{"id":"30661","name":"VIP"},{"id":"3717","name":"voting"},{"id":"9475","name":"elections"},{"id":"90","name":"registration"}],"core_research_areas":[],"news_room_topics":[{"id":"71871","name":"Campus and Community"},{"id":"71901","name":"Society and Culture"}],"event_categories":[],"invited_audience":[],"affiliations":[],"classification":[],"areas_of_expertise":[],"news_and_recent_appearances":[],"phone":[],"contact":[{"value":"\u003Cp\u003EMichael Pearson\u003Cbr \/\u003E\r\n\u003Ca href=\u0022mailto:michael.pearson@iac.gatech.edu\u0022\u003Emichael.pearson@iac.gatech.edu\u003C\/a\u003E\u003C\/p\u003E\r\n","format":"limited_html"}],"email":["michael.pearson@iac.gatech.edu"],"slides":[],"orientation":[],"userdata":""}},"637235":{"#nid":"637235","#data":{"type":"news","title":"Herrmann Honored with 2020 SEG Reginald Fessenden Award","body":[{"value":"\u003Cp\u003E\u003Ca href=\u0022https:\/\/www.ece.gatech.edu\/faculty-staff-directory\/felix-herrmann\u0022 target=\u0022_blank\u0022\u003E\u003Cstrong\u003EFelix Herrmann\u003C\/strong\u003E\u003C\/a\u003E is the recipient of the 2020 Reginald Fessenden Award, presented by the Society of Exploration Geophysicists (SEG). He is receiving this award with Charles (Chuck) Mosher, of ConocoPhillips, which recognizes their pioneering work\u0026nbsp;in the development and\u0026nbsp;application of compressive sensing (CS) in seismology. \u0026nbsp;\u003C\/p\u003E\r\n\r\n\u003Cp\u003EBorrowing from electrical engineering and\u0026nbsp;mathematics, they have shown how new theories can be utilized to efficiently\u0026nbsp;acquire higher quality seismic surveys at costs much lower than that afforded by traditional methods. These two award winners did not directly work together, but they both\u0026nbsp;benefitted from each other\u0026rsquo;s contributions and set an exemplary example of how\u0026nbsp;technical success can be achieved by the interaction between academia and\u0026nbsp;industry.\u0026nbsp;Their efforts are\u0026nbsp;establishing the new paradigm for seismic acquisition, and their innovations are deserving of this prestigious award.\u003C\/p\u003E\r\n\r\n\u003Cp\u003ESuch concepts as sampling interval and aliasing have been well established, but these concepts are based on regularly discretizing a continuous signal. Irregular sampling allows CS to avoid the traditional Nyquist criteria of sampling two points per wavelength to eliminate aliasing. This opens the possibility for sparser sampling while maintaining or enhancing bandwidth and managing incoherently aliased energy. This is the basic premise of CS, but there are significant hurdles in implementing any new approach for effective use in the field. Questions such as how to acquire irregularly sampled field data, represent it in a compressed form, deblend simultaneous sources, and perform a sparse inversion to reconstruct the desired output data are among the key challenges Herrmann and Mosher have addressed successfully.\u003C\/p\u003E\r\n\r\n\u003Cp\u003EHerrmann joined the Georgia Tech faculty in 2017 as a professor in the Georgia Tech School of Earth and Atmospheric Sciences and as a Georgia Research Alliance Eminent Scholar in Energy. He holds joint appointments in the School of Electrical and Computer Engineering and the School of Computational Science and Engineering.\u0026nbsp;While a professor at the University of British Columbia, Herrmann led the industry-supported SINBAD consortium from 2005-2017. The\u0026nbsp;focus of this consortium was on applications of CS for cost reduction of seismic acquisition, seismic processing, and seismic imaging. Herrmann and his colleagues addressed sampling-related cost of seismic acquisition by using CS wavefield reconstruction methods based on\u0026nbsp;randomized sampling techniques and simultaneous shooting in land and marine acquisitions.\u0026nbsp;\u003C\/p\u003E\r\n\r\n\u003Cp\u003EThrough several publications, he and his team demonstrated that a signal can be represented sparsely, interference (aliasing) can be rendered into incoherent noise by random sampling, and a nontraditional optimization algorithm can recover the desired signal from the sparse representation. Key areas in which Herrmann has contributed are: seismic data processing, wave equation imaging, and full-waveform inversion (FWI). In seismic processing, he has shown that multidimensional data can either be sparsely represented using a curvelet transform or in low-rank factored form. Given these structured representations, Herrmann demonstrated how seismic wavefields can be reconstructed from severe undersamplings by promoting structure via optimization. He showed how to represent primary reflections with a sparse spike inversion, which also draws on new techniques from modern convex optimization. In wave equation imaging, he has shown how statistical sampling of shots, in combination with\u0026nbsp;curvelet-domain sparsity promotion, can yield impressive cost reductions of reverse time migration and FWI. He and his team also were responsible for the development of wavefield reconstruction inversion, a new technique designed to mitigate the impact of local minima. Finally, he\u0026nbsp;was selected as the SEG\u0026nbsp;2019 first-quarter\/second-quarter Distinguished Lecturer to present \u0026ldquo;Sometimes it pays to be cheap \u0026mdash; Compressive time-lapse seismic data acquisition,\u0026rdquo; which focuses on obtaining repeatable time-lapse data without insisting on replication in the field.\u0026nbsp;\u003C\/p\u003E\r\n\r\n\u003Cp\u003EMosher and his team at ConocoPhillips have also made significant advances that are currently realizing the potential of CS in acquisition and processing. Mosher extends the windowed Fourier transform to a fast generalized windowed transform by introducing fractional decimation concepts to overcome sub-band aliasing artifacts, and this provides a sparse transform to represent data with fewer samples. He and his team developed nonuniform optimal sampling for choosing nonuniform sensor locations for seismic survey planning and prove that the new sampling strategy makes it possible to recover significantly broader spatial bandwidth than could be obtained using uniform sampling. CS data reconstruction is an important step, and Mosher and his team developed an effective seismic data reconstruction workflow. They also introduced a novel optimization algorithm for data reconstruction, which adapts the alternating direction method with a variable-splitting technique to recover a sparse representation of the seismic data. Source deblending is an important step, and they have demonstrated how this can improve seismic data quality with reduced acquisition time and cost.\u0026nbsp;\u003C\/p\u003E\r\n\r\n\u003Cp\u003ETo date, ConocoPhillips and its business partners have acquired 17 CS data sets globally, including ocean-bottom node\/cable, narrow-azimuth marine streamer, and land vibroseis surveys. For all the finished processing projects, the imaging results from the CS surveys exceeds the quality of legacy or neighboring surveys with traditional designs. The paradoxical result is that CS theory produces higher data quality at lower cost and in shorter time frames than would be achieved with equivalent traditionally sampled survey designs. To date, global deployments of CS technology in production have led to direct acquisition cost savings of more than US$165 million and indirect cost savings of US$180 million from optimized drilling decisions.\u003C\/p\u003E\r\n","summary":null,"format":"limited_html"}],"field_subtitle":"","field_summary":[{"value":"\u003Cp\u003EFelix Herrmann is the recipient of the 2020 Reginald Fessenden Award, presented by the Society of Exploration Geophysicists (SEG). He is receiving this award with Charles (Chuck) Mosher, of ConocoPhillips, which recognizes their pioneering work\u0026nbsp;in the development and\u0026nbsp;application of compressive sensing (CS) in seismology. \u0026nbsp;\u003C\/p\u003E\r\n","format":"limited_html"}],"field_summary_sentence":[{"value":"Felix Herrmann is the recipient of the 2020 Reginald Fessenden Award, presented by the Society of Exploration Geophysicists (SEG). He is receiving this award with Charles (Chuck) Mosher, of ConocoPhillips."}],"uid":"34528","created_gmt":"2020-07-23 20:52:51","changed_gmt":"2020-07-23 20:53:42","author":"jhunt7","boilerplate_text":"","field_publication":"","field_article_url":"","dateline":{"date":"2020-07-23T00:00:00-04:00","iso_date":"2020-07-23T00:00:00-04:00","tz":"America\/New_York"},"extras":[],"hg_media":{"603950":{"id":"603950","type":"image","title":"Felix Herrmann","body":null,"created":"1521326281","gmt_created":"2018-03-17 22:38:01","changed":"1521326281","gmt_changed":"2018-03-17 22:38:01","alt":"photograph of Felix Herrmann","file":{"fid":"230190","name":"felix.jpg","image_path":"\/sites\/default\/files\/images\/felix.jpg","image_full_path":"http:\/\/hg.gatech.edu\/\/sites\/default\/files\/images\/felix.jpg","mime":"image\/jpeg","size":10953,"path_740":"http:\/\/hg.gatech.edu\/sites\/default\/files\/styles\/740xx_scale\/public\/images\/felix.jpg?itok=-HEmxRXL"}}},"media_ids":["603950"],"related_links":[{"url":"https:\/\/www.ece.gatech.edu\/faculty-staff-directory\/felix-herrmann","title":"Felix Herrmann"},{"url":"http:\/\/www.eas.gatech.edu","title":"School of Earth and Atmospheric Sciences"},{"url":"http:\/\/www.ece.gatech.edu","title":"School of Electrical and Computer Engineering"},{"url":"http:\/\/www.cse.gatech.edu","title":"School of Computational Science and Engineering"},{"url":"http:\/\/www.gra.org","title":"Georgia Research Alliance"},{"url":"https:\/\/seg.org\/Default.aspx?TabId=176\u0026language=en-US","title":"Society of Exploration Geophysicists"}],"groups":[{"id":"1278","name":"College of Sciences"},{"id":"364801","name":"School of Earth and Atmospheric Sciences (EAS)"}],"categories":[{"id":"134","name":"Student and Faculty"},{"id":"135","name":"Research"},{"id":"153","name":"Computer Science\/Information Technology and Security"},{"id":"144","name":"Energy"},{"id":"145","name":"Engineering"},{"id":"154","name":"Environment"}],"keywords":[{"id":"177470","name":"Felix Herrmann"},{"id":"276","name":"Awards"},{"id":"1506","name":"faculty"},{"id":"109","name":"Georgia Tech"},{"id":"166926","name":"School of Earth and Atmospheric Sciences"},{"id":"166855","name":"School of Electrical and Computer Engineering"},{"id":"166983","name":"School of Computational Science and Engineering"},{"id":"1464","name":"Georgia Research Alliance"},{"id":"185360","name":"SINBAD Consortium"},{"id":"185361","name":"Reginald Fessenden Award"},{"id":"177471","name":"Society of Exploration Geophysicists"},{"id":"173235","name":"compressive sensing"},{"id":"170891","name":"seismology"},{"id":"185362","name":"Chuck Mosher"},{"id":"5529","name":"ConocoPhillips"},{"id":"185363","name":"sampling interval and aliasing"},{"id":"185364","name":"seismic acquisition"},{"id":"185365","name":"seismic processing"},{"id":"171230","name":"seismic imaging"},{"id":"185366","name":"compressive sampling wavefield reconstruction methods"},{"id":"185367","name":"seismic data processing"},{"id":"185368","name":"wave equation imaging"},{"id":"185369","name":"full-waveform inversion (FWI)"},{"id":"185370","name":"seismic survey planning;ocean-bottom node\/cable"},{"id":"185371","name":"narrow-azimuth marine streamer"},{"id":"185372","name":"and land vibroseis surveys; optimized drilling decisions"}],"core_research_areas":[{"id":"39431","name":"Data Engineering and Science"},{"id":"39451","name":"Electronics and Nanotechnology"},{"id":"39531","name":"Energy and Sustainable Infrastructure"}],"news_room_topics":[],"event_categories":[],"invited_audience":[],"affiliations":[],"classification":[],"areas_of_expertise":[],"news_and_recent_appearances":[],"phone":[],"contact":[{"value":"\u003Cp\u003EJackie Nemeth\u003Cbr \/\u003E\r\nSchool of Electrical and Computer Engineering\u003Cbr \/\u003E\r\n404-894-2906\u003C\/p\u003E\r\n","format":"limited_html"}],"email":["jackie.nemeth@ece.gatech.edu"],"slides":[],"orientation":[],"userdata":""}},"634615":{"#nid":"634615","#data":{"type":"news","title":"Interactive Tool Helps People See Why Staying Home Matters During a Pandemic","body":[{"value":"\u003Cp\u003ESocial distancing has become one of the most impactful strategies in the battle to contain the spread of COVID-19, and a new interactive modeling tool can help people understand why it is so important to \u0026ldquo;flatten the curve.\u0026rdquo; Known as VERA, the artificial intelligence (AI) application was developed by researchers at the Georgia Institute of Technology to raise awareness about why it matters that individuals distance themselves during an infectious disease outbreak.\u0026nbsp;\u003C\/p\u003E\r\n\r\n\u003Cp\u003ELed by College of Computing faculty members Ashok Goel and Spencer Rugaber, and Design \u0026amp; Intelligence Laboratory graduate researchers William Broniec and Sungeun An, the VERA Epidemiology project uses AI techniques to empower users to build their own visual models that simulate the impact of social distancing. The project evolved from earlier National Science Foundation-supported research on a virtual ecological research assistant that enables researchers to explore \u0026ldquo;what if\u0026rdquo; experiments about complex ecological phenomena.\u003C\/p\u003E\r\n\r\n\u003Cp\u003EThe beauty of VERA is that users do not need a background in complex mathematical equations or computer programming to explore it. A high school student interested in finding out what it looks like to \u0026ldquo;flatten the curve\u0026rdquo; can log in to VERA and investigate. A parent handling middle school science lessons from home can log in to VERA and demonstrate the reason that it is important that they do lessons from home during the COVID-19 outbreak.\u0026nbsp;\u003C\/p\u003E\r\n\r\n\u003Cp\u003EFor example, a user can input 16 people as the \u0026ldquo;average contacts per day per person\u0026rdquo; and see a simulation of the possible outcomes. Then, the user can lower the number of \u0026ldquo;average contacts per day per person\u0026rdquo; to 12, a reduction in social contact but not a substantial one. Upon running the simulation again, users see a marked difference in \u0026ldquo;peak cases\u0026rdquo; of 7,000 rather than 8,000, and healthcare capacity being exceeded after 20 days, rather than the original 15. Users can continue to adjust these numbers to see the impact of social distancing transform possible health outcomes before their eyes.\u0026nbsp;\u003C\/p\u003E\r\n\r\n\u003Cp\u003E\u0026ldquo;Think of VERA as a virtual laboratory that anyone can use,\u0026rdquo; said Ashok Goel, a professor in the School of Interactive Computing and the chief scientist for Georgia Tech\u0026rsquo;s Center for 21st Century Universities. \u0026ldquo;The user can jump into our program and conduct \u0026lsquo;what if\u0026rsquo; experiments by adjusting simulation parameters. We see education as an essential component of \u0026lsquo;flattening the curve\u0026rsquo; and this is our way of providing an accessible and informal learning tool that can educate citizens about social distancing data.\u0026rdquo;\u0026nbsp;\u0026nbsp;\u003C\/p\u003E\r\n\r\n\u003Cp\u003EA key component of Georgia Tech\u0026rsquo;s strategic vision for the future of education is an \u0026ldquo;inclusive and impactful education that serves the public good.\u0026rdquo; Tools like VERA provide inclusive resources that help the global community gain a greater understanding of the real-world impact of our actions during a crisis like COVID-19.\u0026nbsp;\u003C\/p\u003E\r\n\r\n\u003Cp\u003EAre you interested in trying VERA? Anyone can create an account through \u003Ca href=\u0022http:\/\/epi.vera.cc.gatech.edu\u0022\u003Eepi.vera.cc.gatech.edu\u003C\/a\u003E\u0026nbsp;\u003C\/p\u003E\r\n\r\n\u003Cp\u003EThe VERA project website also includes a brief user guide as well as a step-by-step tutorial about VERA. They are available at\u0026nbsp; \u003Ca href=\u0022http:\/\/epi.vera.cc.gatech.edu\/docs\/exercise\u0022\u003Ehttp:\/\/epi.vera.cc.gatech.edu\/docs\/exercise\u003C\/a\u003E\u003C\/p\u003E\r\n\r\n\u003Cp\u003EYou can also read the new white paper about this work, \u0026ldquo;Using VERA to explain the impact of social distancing on the spread of COVID-19,\u0026rdquo; on the VERA website.\u003C\/p\u003E\r\n\r\n\u003Cp\u003E\u003Cstrong\u003EResearch News\u003Cbr \/\u003E\r\nGeorgia Institute of Technology\u003Cbr \/\u003E\r\n177 North Avenue\u003Cbr \/\u003E\r\nAtlanta, Georgia\u0026nbsp; 30332-0181\u0026nbsp; USA\u003C\/strong\u003E\u003C\/p\u003E\r\n\r\n\u003Cp\u003E\u003Cstrong\u003EMedia Relations Contact\u003C\/strong\u003E: John Toon (404-894-6986) (jtoon@gatech.edu).\u003C\/p\u003E\r\n\r\n\u003Cp\u003E\u003Cstrong\u003EWriter\u003C\/strong\u003E: Brittany Aiello\u003C\/p\u003E\r\n","summary":null,"format":"limited_html"}],"field_subtitle":"","field_summary":[{"value":"\u003Cp\u003ESocial distancing has become one of the most impactful strategies in the battle to contain the spread of COVID-19, and a new interactive modeling tool can help people understand why it is so important to \u0026ldquo;flatten the curve.\u0026rdquo;\u0026nbsp;\u003C\/p\u003E\r\n","format":"limited_html"}],"field_summary_sentence":[{"value":"A new interactive modeling tool can help people understand why social distancing is so important."}],"uid":"27303","created_gmt":"2020-04-21 19:45:55","changed_gmt":"2020-04-21 19:46:53","author":"John Toon","boilerplate_text":"","field_publication":"","field_article_url":"","dateline":{"date":"2020-04-21T00:00:00-04:00","iso_date":"2020-04-21T00:00:00-04:00","tz":"America\/New_York"},"extras":[],"hg_media":{"634613":{"id":"634613","type":"image","title":"Chart Shows Impact of Distancing","body":null,"created":"1587496904","gmt_created":"2020-04-21 19:21:44","changed":"1587496904","gmt_changed":"2020-04-21 19:21:44","alt":"Chart for VERA\u0027s epidemiology application","file":{"fid":"241491","name":"VAL12.png","image_path":"\/sites\/default\/files\/images\/VAL12.png","image_full_path":"http:\/\/hg.gatech.edu\/\/sites\/default\/files\/images\/VAL12.png","mime":"image\/png","size":30845,"path_740":"http:\/\/hg.gatech.edu\/sites\/default\/files\/styles\/740xx_scale\/public\/images\/VAL12.png?itok=YGCUOphk"}},"634614":{"id":"634614","type":"image","title":"Importance of Social Distancing","body":null,"created":"1587497122","gmt_created":"2020-04-21 19:25:22","changed":"1587497122","gmt_changed":"2020-04-21 19:25:22","alt":"Social distancing graphic","file":{"fid":"241492","name":"GettyImages-1215988312-medium.jpg","image_path":"\/sites\/default\/files\/images\/GettyImages-1215988312-medium.jpg","image_full_path":"http:\/\/hg.gatech.edu\/\/sites\/default\/files\/images\/GettyImages-1215988312-medium.jpg","mime":"image\/jpeg","size":252786,"path_740":"http:\/\/hg.gatech.edu\/sites\/default\/files\/styles\/740xx_scale\/public\/images\/GettyImages-1215988312-medium.jpg?itok=LyVN4reS"}}},"media_ids":["634613","634614"],"groups":[{"id":"1188","name":"Research Horizons"}],"categories":[{"id":"135","name":"Research"},{"id":"153","name":"Computer Science\/Information Technology and Security"},{"id":"146","name":"Life Sciences and Biology"}],"keywords":[{"id":"729","name":"pandemic"},{"id":"184289","name":"covid-19"},{"id":"182669","name":"VERA"},{"id":"11138","name":"Epidemiology"},{"id":"112431","name":"ashok goel"},{"id":"2835","name":"ai"},{"id":"184284","name":"GTCOVID"},{"id":"184588","name":"interactive tool"}],"core_research_areas":[{"id":"39441","name":"Bioengineering and Bioscience"},{"id":"39501","name":"People and Technology"}],"news_room_topics":[{"id":"71881","name":"Science and Technology"}],"event_categories":[],"invited_audience":[],"affiliations":[],"classification":[],"areas_of_expertise":[],"news_and_recent_appearances":[],"phone":[],"contact":[{"value":"\u003Cp\u003EJohn Toon\u003C\/p\u003E\r\n\r\n\u003Cp\u003EResearch News\u003C\/p\u003E\r\n\r\n\u003Cp\u003E(404) 894-6986\u003C\/p\u003E\r\n","format":"limited_html"}],"email":["jtoon@gatech.edu"],"slides":[],"orientation":[],"userdata":""}},"633813":{"#nid":"633813","#data":{"type":"news","title":"Computing Professor Uses Virtual Reality to Move Major Conference Online","body":[{"value":"\u003Cp\u003EThis week, 1,800 scientists, engineers, designers, and other experts gathered for the \u003Ca href=\u0022http:\/\/ieeevr.org\/2020\/\u0022\u003EIEEE Conference on Virtual Reality and 3D User Interfaces\u003C\/a\u003E (IEEE VR). The event brings together people from around the world to examine the latest research and advancements in the area of virtual reality (VR).\u003C\/p\u003E\r\n\r\n\u003Cp\u003EAttendees\u0026nbsp;watched presentations and invited talks and participated in poster and demonstration sessions. It\u0026rsquo;s a typical academic conference in every way except for one significant change this year: it will take place entirely online, with social events hosted completely in virtual environments.\u003C\/p\u003E\r\n\r\n\u003Cp\u003E\u003Ca href=\u0022https:\/\/www.cc.gatech.edu\/people\/blair-macintyre\u0022\u003EBlair MacIntyre\u003C\/a\u003E, a professor in Georgia Tech\u0026rsquo;s College of Computing\u0026nbsp;and IEEE VR conference co-chair, proposed transitioning to an all-virtual event to support social distancing recommendations related to the COVID-19 pandemic.\u003C\/p\u003E\r\n\r\n\u003Cp\u003E\u0026ldquo;We were planning on a small experiment with online attendees to investigate the use of VR to make conferences more accessible and sustainable. Suddenly we needed to ramp up to accommodate everyone across all traditional conference activities,\u0026rdquo; MacIntyre said.\u003C\/p\u003E\r\n\r\n\u003Cp\u003EThe entire five-day event convened in Mozilla Hubs, an online platform for remote virtual experiences. IEEE VR marks the first time that a major academic conference of this scale will move online and depend solely on a virtual environment platform, including the social networking sessions that are an essential part of conferences.\u003C\/p\u003E\r\n\r\n\u003Cp\u003EThe virtual experience merges video conferencing, video streaming, and online chat platforms with a custom version of Hubs. The platform operates in most web browsers, and conference attendees can join whether or not they have a VR device. As with an in-person conference, participants will watch and discuss talks, take part in parallel sessions, and network one-on-one while interacting through avatars.\u003C\/p\u003E\r\n\r\n\u003Cp\u003EThe conference is\u0026nbsp;taking\u0026nbsp;place in Eastern Standard Time. While organizers acknowledge that it will be difficult for people in other time zones to attend, they say there are other benefits of a virtual conference such as better work-life balance.\u003C\/p\u003E\r\n\r\n\u003Cp\u003E\u0026ldquo;One of the hardest things for people to do in this sort of format is focus on the content,\u0026rdquo; said Kyle Johnsen, IEEE VR co-chair and associate professor of engineering in the College of Engineering, University of Georgia. \u0026ldquo;If you\u0026rsquo;re going to a virtual conference, you need to treat it like you\u0026rsquo;re at an in-person conference, at least during the business day. One of the huge advantages is that you still get to tuck your kids in at night, which is awesome, and we don\u0026rsquo;t want to lose that, but you do need to maintain the same level of time commitment. That\u0026rsquo;s the value of conferences.\u0026rdquo;\u003C\/p\u003E\r\n\r\n\u003Cp\u003E\u003Cstrong\u003ESocial Change Through Technology\u003C\/strong\u003E\u003Cbr \/\u003E\r\nMacIntyre began exploring the use of Hubs in 2019 to address climate change and the carbon impact of long-haul flights to academic conferences. He points out that the carbon impact of a recent round-trip he took to a conference in Berlin, Germany, was higher than that of his own four-person household for an entire month.\u003C\/p\u003E\r\n\r\n\u003Cp\u003EHe also views virtual experiences as a way of democratizing academic conferences, which are often limited to attendees from well-funded colleges, universities, and companies, while shutting out those who can\u0026rsquo;t afford to spend thousands of dollars on travel or leave their jobs or families for a week or more.\u003C\/p\u003E\r\n\r\n\u003Cp\u003E\u0026ldquo;If we can take something like IEEE VR, which is normally around 1,000 people, and turn it into an event where 10,000 people can attend, we\u0026rsquo;ll have a much more diverse and inclusive event.\u0026rdquo;\u003C\/p\u003E\r\n\r\n\u003Cp\u003ENow, with recent global challenges of the coronavirus, technology is once again at the forefront of shaping our society \u0026ndash; changes that we\u0026rsquo;re seeing, and living, in real-time. Whether it\u0026rsquo;s attending a virtual reality conference, working remotely, or taking a class online, \u0026ldquo;technology has the opportunity to help people connect,\u0026rdquo; MacIntyre said.\u003C\/p\u003E\r\n\r\n\u003Cp\u003EOne recent example \u0026ndash; the City of Atlanta has created an emergency fund to assist those impacted by COVID-19, $1 million of which will go toward purchasing technology to support the city\u0026rsquo;s telework deployment.\u003C\/p\u003E\r\n\r\n\u003Cp\u003EWhile our current crisis has forced an evolution in how we\u0026rsquo;re interacting through technology, he wonders about a permanent change in the future. \u0026ldquo;How many companies will shift to online? How many people will demand the opportunity? It will be interesting to see how we all feel after coming out of this forced remote experiment.\u0026rdquo;\u0026nbsp;\u003C\/p\u003E\r\n\r\n\u003Cp\u003EAny long-term technology transformation would mean an entire cultural shift, he said. \u0026ldquo;The technologies are there and can support remote work and education in different ways, but it only works if there\u0026rsquo;s a commitment.\u0026rdquo;\u003C\/p\u003E\r\n\r\n\u003Cp\u003E\u003Cstrong\u003EResearch News\u003Cbr \/\u003E\r\nGeorgia Institute of Technology\u003Cbr \/\u003E\r\n177 North Avenue\u003Cbr \/\u003E\r\nAtlanta, Georgia\u0026nbsp; 30332-0181\u0026nbsp; USA\u003C\/strong\u003E\u003C\/p\u003E\r\n\r\n\u003Cp\u003E\u003Cstrong\u003EMedia Relations Contacts\u003C\/strong\u003E: John Toon (404-894-6986) (jtoon@gatech.edu) or Ben Brumfield (404-272-2780) (ben.brumfield@comm.gatech.edu).\u003C\/p\u003E\r\n\r\n\u003Cp\u003E\u003Cstrong\u003EWriter\u003C\/strong\u003E: Alyson Powell Key\u003C\/p\u003E\r\n","summary":null,"format":"limited_html"}],"field_subtitle":"","field_summary":[{"value":"\u003Cp\u003EFor the first time in its 26-year history, the IEEE VR conference will meet in an all-virtual environment, a transition made to support social distancing recommendations related to the COVID-19 pandemic.\u003C\/p\u003E\r\n","format":"limited_html"}],"field_summary_sentence":[{"value":"For the first time in its 26-year history, IEEE VR will meet in an all-virtual environment."}],"uid":"32045","created_gmt":"2020-03-25 15:31:54","changed_gmt":"2022-05-26 17:09:36","author":"Ben Snedeker","boilerplate_text":"","field_publication":"","field_article_url":"","dateline":{"date":"2020-03-24T00:00:00-04:00","iso_date":"2020-03-24T00:00:00-04:00","tz":"America\/New_York"},"extras":[],"hg_media":{"633800":{"id":"633800","type":"image","title":"IEEE VR Conference Moves Online","body":null,"created":"1585084264","gmt_created":"2020-03-24 21:11:04","changed":"1585084264","gmt_changed":"2020-03-24 21:11:04","alt":"Conference graphic","file":{"fid":"241158","name":"thumbnail_Untitled 3.png","image_path":"\/sites\/default\/files\/images\/thumbnail_Untitled%203.png","image_full_path":"http:\/\/hg.gatech.edu\/\/sites\/default\/files\/images\/thumbnail_Untitled%203.png","mime":"image\/png","size":645489,"path_740":"http:\/\/hg.gatech.edu\/sites\/default\/files\/styles\/740xx_scale\/public\/images\/thumbnail_Untitled%203.png?itok=CT_2trvA"}},"633801":{"id":"633801","type":"image","title":"IEEE VR Conference Moves Online - 2","body":null,"created":"1585084426","gmt_created":"2020-03-24 21:13:46","changed":"1585084426","gmt_changed":"2020-03-24 21:13:46","alt":"Image from IEEE online conference","file":{"fid":"241159","name":"thumbnail_DSC_6323.jpg","image_path":"\/sites\/default\/files\/images\/thumbnail_DSC_6323.jpg","image_full_path":"http:\/\/hg.gatech.edu\/\/sites\/default\/files\/images\/thumbnail_DSC_6323.jpg","mime":"image\/jpeg","size":161921,"path_740":"http:\/\/hg.gatech.edu\/sites\/default\/files\/styles\/740xx_scale\/public\/images\/thumbnail_DSC_6323.jpg?itok=7PYnNKzy"}},"633803":{"id":"633803","type":"image","title":"Georgia Tech Researcher Blair MacIntyre","body":null,"created":"1585084650","gmt_created":"2020-03-24 21:17:30","changed":"1585084650","gmt_changed":"2020-03-24 21:17:30","alt":"Georgia Tech researcher Blair MacIntyre","file":{"fid":"241161","name":"blair-macintyre.jpg","image_path":"\/sites\/default\/files\/images\/blair-macintyre.jpg","image_full_path":"http:\/\/hg.gatech.edu\/\/sites\/default\/files\/images\/blair-macintyre.jpg","mime":"image\/jpeg","size":586656,"path_740":"http:\/\/hg.gatech.edu\/sites\/default\/files\/styles\/740xx_scale\/public\/images\/blair-macintyre.jpg?itok=R3HLSl8o"}}},"media_ids":["633800","633801","633803"],"groups":[{"id":"47223","name":"College of Computing"}],"categories":[{"id":"135","name":"Research"},{"id":"153","name":"Computer Science\/Information Technology and Security"},{"id":"143","name":"Digital Media and Entertainment"}],"keywords":[{"id":"145251","name":"virtual reality"},{"id":"184284","name":"GTCOVID"},{"id":"184321","name":"online conference"},{"id":"1187","name":"IEEE"},{"id":"184322","name":"virtual environment"}],"core_research_areas":[{"id":"39431","name":"Data Engineering and Science"},{"id":"39501","name":"People and Technology"}],"news_room_topics":[{"id":"71881","name":"Science and Technology"},{"id":"71901","name":"Society and Culture"}],"event_categories":[],"invited_audience":[],"affiliations":[],"classification":[],"areas_of_expertise":[],"news_and_recent_appearances":[],"phone":[],"contact":[{"value":"\u003Cp\u003EJohn Toon - Research News\u003C\/p\u003E","format":"limited_html"}],"email":["jtoon@gatech.edu"],"slides":[],"orientation":[],"userdata":""}},"628125":{"#nid":"628125","#data":{"type":"news","title":"Queues takes the waiting out of lines","body":[{"value":"\u003Cp\u003EYou\u0026rsquo;re starving and you\u0026rsquo;re going to be late for your exam unless you grab food quickly. The problem? It\u0026rsquo;s 11:45 a.m. It\u0026rsquo;s the busiest time of day at the Student Center. All the lines for restaurants are huge. Which one is the quickest?\u003C\/p\u003E\r\n\r\n\u003Cp\u003EThere is a solution. You grab your phone and open Queues, an app that tells you wait times for all dining locations on campus. Now you don\u0026rsquo;t have waste your time in line \u0026ndash; instead you get to make sure you\u0026rsquo;re fed before taking your exam.\u003C\/p\u003E\r\n\r\n\u003Cp\u003EQueues was created by Samuel Porta, a third-year Computer Science student from New Zealand. Porta has always had an entrepreneurial spirit. He started his first business selling candy on the school bus after seeing that his classmates were hungry on the way home at the end of the day. \u0026ldquo;I would find a problem and fix it.\u0026rdquo; Coming to Georgia Tech was his opportunity to create something bigger that would solve a problem.\u003C\/p\u003E\r\n\r\n\u003Cp\u003EPorta took the Startup Ideas course Fall of 2017, took Idea to Prototype Spring 2018, and was admitted into the CREATE-X Startup Launch program as a freshman for the summer of 2018. Every Tuesday he would meet with coaches and provide a weekly progress report and in turn receive feedback.\u003C\/p\u003E\r\n\r\n\u003Cp\u003EDuring the week, his team spent hours at the Georgia Tech Police Department (GTPD) looking at footage of students waiting in line at dining locations on campus to figure out wait times. They realized a few obstacles:\u003C\/p\u003E\r\n\r\n\u003Col\u003E\r\n\t\u003Cli\u003EIt takes too much time to filter through all the footage.\u003C\/li\u003E\r\n\t\u003Cli\u003EThe wait times during the summer are drastically different than wait times in the fall and spring semesters.\u003C\/li\u003E\r\n\u003C\/ol\u003E\r\n\r\n\u003Cp\u003EThe data collection process was too labor intensive and subject to change based on term, weather, day of the week, exam schedules, etc. They began looking into alternatives to collecting data for determining wait times.\u003C\/p\u003E\r\n\r\n\u003Cp\u003EQueues figured out that the best way to provide accurate wait times was by crowdsourcing the information. By adding an iPad with a few buttons to indicate how long you waited in line at the beginning of the line, Queues would have much more data to work with. Adding buttons to every dining location would not have been possible without a contract with the Georgia Tech Dining provider.\u003C\/p\u003E\r\n\r\n\u003Cp\u003EAt the same time, the team also shifted their revenue model and focused on receiving money from the users of the app versus relying on consumers to pay for Queues. Queues learned through customer discover that providing wait times to consumers is a convenience and it is not something they absolutely need and would be willing to pay a premium for.\u003C\/p\u003E\r\n\r\n\u003Cp\u003EQueues started negotiations with Georgia Tech dining services. Porta took initiative to give a call and ask for the person in charge. With his passion, respect, and gratitude he was able to speak to the person in charge and began negotiations. But they were soon faced with another obstacle \u0026ndash; the food services vendor changed during negotiations, slowing the process down considerably. \u0026nbsp;Typically, with contract negotiations, the general word of advice is if it takes longer than six months, it\u0026rsquo;s not going to happen, and it is not worth pursuing. But Porta was persistent. His negotiation with Georgia Tech lasted more than a year. If he hadn\u0026rsquo;t been, then Queues would have folded. \u0026nbsp;\u003C\/p\u003E\r\n\r\n\u003Cp\u003EAfter Startup Launch Porta decided to pursue Queues full time for a semester. \u0026ldquo;I was excited about Startup Launch and motivated by the energy of the program. I continued app development, figured out our first customer and how to deploy [Queues].\u0026rdquo; In spring of 2019, he returned to be a part-time student and part-time CEO of Queues.\u003C\/p\u003E\r\n\r\n\u003Cp\u003ESince last summer, the team has expanded from two team members to five. Porta found employees through WRECK camp, an Idea to Prototype event, a reddit post for android developers, and an old friend that took classes with him.\u003C\/p\u003E\r\n\r\n\u003Cp\u003EQueues currently has 100 users that provide feedback and they hope to have a few thousand testers and users by the end of the Spring 2020 semester.\u003C\/p\u003E\r\n\r\n\u003Cp\u003EQueues is now up and running on campus. So, what now?\u003C\/p\u003E\r\n\r\n\u003Cp\u003E\u0026ldquo;We are doing a trial period with the food service provider on campus,\u0026rdquo; said Porta. \u0026ldquo;If all goes well, the vendor already has other sites identified to deploy Queues.\u0026rdquo;\u003C\/p\u003E\r\n\r\n\u003Cp\u003EPorta reflects on his time in CREATE-X.\u003C\/p\u003E\r\n\r\n\u003Cp\u003E\u0026ldquo;The most important lesson from Startup Launch is learning to think differently about startups,\u0026rdquo; said Porta. \u0026ldquo;Startups are generally portrayed as \u0026lsquo;you have this great idea and then you immediately create a solution and it is perfect.\u0026rsquo; That everyone will become the next Facebook or Microsoft. That\u0026rsquo;s how the stories are told and immortalized. But of course, it misses all the actual learning that happens along the way.\u0026rdquo;\u003C\/p\u003E\r\n\r\n\u003Cp\u003EQueues is now looking for someone with experience in Firebase or databases and data processing. If you are interested, please contact Samuel Porta at \u003Ca href=\u0022mailto:samrossporta@gatech.edu\u0022\u003Esamrossporta@gatech.edu\u003C\/a\u003E. You can download Queues now for both Android and iOS and visit their \u003Ca href=\u0022https:\/\/www.queuesapp.com\/\u0022\u003Ewebsite\u003C\/a\u003E.\u003C\/p\u003E\r\n","summary":null,"format":"limited_html"}],"field_subtitle":"","field_summary":[{"value":"\u003Cp\u003EAvoid staying hangry by using Queues, a CREATE-X alumn company, to know how long wait times are at campus dining locations\u003C\/p\u003E\r\n","format":"limited_html"}],"field_summary_sentence":[{"value":"Avoid staying hangry by using Queues, a CREATE-X alumn company, to know how long wait times are at campus dining locations"}],"uid":"34825","created_gmt":"2019-10-28 14:01:48","changed_gmt":"2019-10-28 14:07:58","author":"joliva7","boilerplate_text":"","field_publication":"","field_article_url":"","dateline":{"date":"2019-10-28T00:00:00-04:00","iso_date":"2019-10-28T00:00:00-04:00","tz":"America\/New_York"},"extras":[],"hg_media":{"628128":{"id":"628128","type":"image","title":"Queues","body":null,"created":"1572271585","gmt_created":"2019-10-28 14:06:25","changed":"1572271585","gmt_changed":"2019-10-28 14:06:25","alt":"","file":{"fid":"239197","name":"Webp.net-resizeimage (3).png","image_path":"\/sites\/default\/files\/images\/Webp.net-resizeimage%20%283%29.png","image_full_path":"http:\/\/hg.gatech.edu\/\/sites\/default\/files\/images\/Webp.net-resizeimage%20%283%29.png","mime":"image\/png","size":5560562,"path_740":"http:\/\/hg.gatech.edu\/sites\/default\/files\/styles\/740xx_scale\/public\/images\/Webp.net-resizeimage%20%283%29.png?itok=y-YiwqFZ"}}},"media_ids":["628128"],"related_links":[{"url":"https:\/\/apps.apple.com\/us\/app\/queues\/id1402712414?ls=1","title":"iOS Download"},{"url":"https:\/\/play.google.com\/store\/apps\/details?id=com.queuesapp.queues","title":"Android Download"}],"groups":[{"id":"583966","name":"CREATE-X"}],"categories":[{"id":"129","name":"Institute and Campus"},{"id":"42901","name":"Community"},{"id":"134","name":"Student and Faculty"},{"id":"8862","name":"Student Research"},{"id":"135","name":"Research"},{"id":"139","name":"Business"},{"id":"153","name":"Computer Science\/Information Technology and Security"}],"keywords":[{"id":"137161","name":"CREATE-X"},{"id":"166994","name":"startups"}],"core_research_areas":[],"news_room_topics":[],"event_categories":[],"invited_audience":[],"affiliations":[],"classification":[],"areas_of_expertise":[],"news_and_recent_appearances":[],"phone":[],"contact":[{"value":"\u003Cp\u003EJoanna Oliva\u003C\/p\u003E\r\n\r\n\u003Cp\u003EMarketing and Event Coordinator\u003C\/p\u003E\r\n","format":"limited_html"}],"email":["joliva7@gatech.edu"],"slides":[],"orientation":[],"userdata":""}},"628287":{"#nid":"628287","#data":{"type":"news","title":"Georgia Tech Student Uses Sticky Notes to Connect with Fortune 500 VP","body":[{"value":"\u003Cp\u003ELanding the perfect internship can be hard. With career fairs to attend, resumes to polish, neckties to tie, comfortable dress shoes to locate, and elevator pitches to land, the process can be daunting. Making a lasting impression in a sea of qualified candidates can be difficult. How do you stand out?\u003C\/p\u003E\r\n\r\n\u003Cp\u003EOne enterprising Georgia Tech student used sticky notes to get noticed by a Fortune 500 company, and he did it from the comfort of his own apartment.\u003C\/p\u003E\r\n\r\n\u003Cp\u003EGursimran Singh, a second-year computer science major, took his internship search into his own hands.\u003C\/p\u003E\r\n\r\n\u003Cp\u003EHis campus-adjacent apartment on Spring Street in midtown Atlanta is right next door to the world headquarters of NCR \u0026ndash; a leading provider of point-of-sale technology for retail and hospitality.\u003C\/p\u003E\r\n\r\n\u003Cp\u003ESingh noticed that his apartment window actually faced some of NCR\u0026rsquo;s office and conference spaces. Using a lovely shade of gold, Singh strategically placed sticky notes on his window in reverse to spell out \u0026ldquo;HIRE ME\u0026rdquo; for the entire right flank of NCR offices to see.\u003C\/p\u003E\r\n\r\n\u003Cp\u003EHe added a smiley face for good measure.\u003C\/p\u003E\r\n\r\n\u003Cp\u003EIt didn\u0026rsquo;t take long for NCR to respond, using the same technology. \u0026ldquo;EMAIL?\u0026rdquo; appeared in a company window dotted with small squares of paper. Another message from NCR appeared in sticky note form asking, \u0026ldquo;DEV?\u0026rdquo;\u003C\/p\u003E\r\n\r\n\u003Cp\u003ESingh provided his email address, which took up nearly all of his floor-to-ceiling bedroom windows. \u0026ldquo;I spent a lot on sticky notes, but it looked pretty cool,\u0026rdquo; Singh said.\u003C\/p\u003E\r\n\r\n\u003Cp\u003EAfter sharing his contact information, Singh started getting notifications in his inbox. \u0026ldquo;I was contacted by a few people, including the vice president of IT,\u0026rdquo; Singh says. \u0026ldquo;They asked me to send my resume, so I did,\u0026rdquo; he explains. He also met with NCR\u0026rsquo;s University Relations Leader on campus.\u003C\/p\u003E\r\n\r\n\u003Cp\u003EAnd, however improbably his search began, Singh\u0026rsquo;s name has been added to the list for summer internship interviews.\u003C\/p\u003E\r\n\r\n\u003Cp\u003E\u0026ldquo;It was really amazing,\u0026rdquo; he says.\u003C\/p\u003E\r\n\r\n\u003Cp\u003E\u003Cstrong\u003EUpdate:\u0026nbsp; Gursimran has successfully landed an internship with NCR. HE participated in the Hack GT event this past weekend and won a top prize using an API provided by NCR, who was a corporate sponsor of the hackathon. The prize he received? An internship offer, which he excitedly plans to accept. \u003C\/strong\u003E\u003C\/p\u003E\r\n","summary":null,"format":"limited_html"}],"field_subtitle":"","field_summary":[{"value":"\u003Cp\u003ESecond-year omputer science student Gursimran Singh spelled out a message on his window \u0026mdash; which faces the corporate headquarters of NCR.\u003C\/p\u003E\r\n","format":"limited_html"}],"field_summary_sentence":[{"value":"The computer science student attached messages to his window \u2014 which faces the corporate headquarters of NCR. "}],"uid":"28058","created_gmt":"2019-10-29 16:56:33","changed_gmt":"2019-10-30 14:30:44","author":"Steven Norris","boilerplate_text":"","field_publication":"","field_article_url":"","dateline":{"date":"2019-10-29T00:00:00-04:00","iso_date":"2019-10-29T00:00:00-04:00","tz":"America\/New_York"},"extras":[],"hg_media":{"628290":{"id":"628290","type":"image","title":"NCR Sticky Messages ","body":null,"created":"1572368353","gmt_created":"2019-10-29 16:59:13","changed":"1572368898","gmt_changed":"2019-10-29 17:08:18","alt":"","file":{"fid":"239269","name":"Screen Shot 2019-10-29 at 12.50.11 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19:01:05","alt":"","file":{"fid":"239277","name":"8288F2EB-ED91-4256-844A-85D7D8695EB7.JPG","image_path":"\/sites\/default\/files\/images\/8288F2EB-ED91-4256-844A-85D7D8695EB7.JPG","image_full_path":"http:\/\/hg.gatech.edu\/\/sites\/default\/files\/images\/8288F2EB-ED91-4256-844A-85D7D8695EB7.JPG","mime":"image\/jpeg","size":685540,"path_740":"http:\/\/hg.gatech.edu\/sites\/default\/files\/styles\/740xx_scale\/public\/images\/8288F2EB-ED91-4256-844A-85D7D8695EB7.JPG?itok=0zda7zGP"}},"628296":{"id":"628296","type":"image","title":"Sticky Notes 3 ","body":null,"created":"1572368688","gmt_created":"2019-10-29 17:04:48","changed":"1572368868","gmt_changed":"2019-10-29 17:07:48","alt":"","file":{"fid":"239273","name":"Screen Shot 2019-10-29 at 12.50.46 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PM.JPG","image_path":"\/sites\/default\/files\/images\/Screen%20Shot%202019-10-29%20at%2012.50.29%20PM.JPG","image_full_path":"http:\/\/hg.gatech.edu\/\/sites\/default\/files\/images\/Screen%20Shot%202019-10-29%20at%2012.50.29%20PM.JPG","mime":"image\/jpeg","size":221266,"path_740":"http:\/\/hg.gatech.edu\/sites\/default\/files\/styles\/740xx_scale\/public\/images\/Screen%20Shot%202019-10-29%20at%2012.50.29%20PM.JPG?itok=oI_aO5s0"}}},"media_ids":["628290","628299","628296","628298","628293"],"groups":[{"id":"1214","name":"News Room"}],"categories":[],"keywords":[{"id":"109","name":"Georgia Tech"},{"id":"178024","name":"Atlanta Internship"},{"id":"1648","name":"Internships"},{"id":"339","name":"NCR"},{"id":"1072","name":"Business"},{"id":"7230","name":"viral"},{"id":"182902","name":"georgia tech student"},{"id":"182903","name":"Atlatna"},{"id":"182904","name":"fortune 500"},{"id":"4354","name":"career fair"},{"id":"182905","name":"funny stories"},{"id":"166991","name":"midtown atlanta"}],"core_research_areas":[],"news_room_topics":[{"id":"71871","name":"Campus and Community"}],"event_categories":[],"invited_audience":[],"affiliations":[],"classification":[],"areas_of_expertise":[],"news_and_recent_appearances":[],"phone":[],"contact":[{"value":"\u003Cp\u003E\u003Ca href=\u0022mailto:snorris@gatech.edu\u0022\u003ESteven Norris\u003C\/a\u003E\u003Cbr \/\u003E\r\nInstitute Communications\u003Cbr \/\u003E\r\nGeorgia Tech\u003Cbr \/\u003E\r\n\u0026nbsp;\u003C\/p\u003E\r\n","format":"limited_html"}],"email":["snorris@gatech.edu"],"slides":[],"orientation":[],"userdata":""}},"620990":{"#nid":"620990","#data":{"type":"news","title":"Married to the Ph.D. \u2014 And Each Other ","body":[{"value":"\u003Cp\u003E2012 was a big year for Unaiza Ahsan. That summer, she married Tech student Munzir Zafar. And, that fall, she began her doctoral studies at Georgia Tech.\u003C\/p\u003E\r\n\r\n\u003Cp\u003E\u0026ldquo;It was a huge transition, coming from Pakistan and having never lived in the U.S.,\u0026rdquo; she said. \u0026ldquo;It was a complete change of culture. Being on my own, managing the house, and the Ph.D. on top of that was daunting. When I look back, I\u0026rsquo;m glad I didn\u0026rsquo;t know a lot of what the Ph.D. really required because I would never have gone down the path. I would have been scared off,\u0026rdquo; she laughed.\u003C\/p\u003E\r\n\r\n\u003Cp\u003EBut Ahsan didn\u0026rsquo;t run away. She is graduating with a Ph.D. in computer science, focusing on computer vision, and her husband will graduate this fall with a Ph.D. in electrical and computer engineering, specializing in robotics.\u003C\/p\u003E\r\n\r\n\u003Cp\u003EAhsan and Zafar were born in Karachi, Pakistan, but they didn\u0026rsquo;t know each other. They met briefly as undergraduates, but went their separate ways and graduated from different schools. She earned a bachelor\u0026rsquo;s degree in telecommunications from NED University of Engineering \u0026amp; Technology. Zafar attended the National University of Sciences and Technology (NUST) and earned a degree in electronic engineering. They didn\u0026rsquo;t keep in touch as undergraduates, but he remembered her. Years later he looked her up, they reconnected, and became engaged.\u003C\/p\u003E\r\n\r\n\u003Cp\u003EAhsan said she had always wanted to go into academia and conduct research. She had become interested in computer vision while earning a master\u0026rsquo;s in computer and information systems, also at NED University. So, pursuing a Ph.D. was next \u0026mdash; and she had just become engaged to Zafar, a Fulbright Scholar at Georgia Tech.\u003C\/p\u003E\r\n\r\n\u003Cp\u003E\u0026ldquo;So, of course, my top choice for a Ph.D. was Georgia Tech,\u0026rdquo; she said. \u0026ldquo;It was a seamless transition from the work I had done at the end of my master\u0026rsquo;s study.\u0026rdquo; \u0026nbsp;\u003C\/p\u003E\r\n\r\n\u003Cp\u003EAhsan broadly describes computer vision as a way of getting machines to understand the surrounding environment.\u003C\/p\u003E\r\n\r\n\u003Cp\u003E\u0026ldquo;We try to feed, for example, photographs and videos to the computer and teach it to recognize what is happening,\u0026rdquo; she said.\u003C\/p\u003E\r\n\r\n\u003Cp\u003EShe defended her thesis last fall, and in February she joined Home Depot as a data scientist on the core recommendations team. Her current project is for the Home Depot website, designing recommendation algorithms for generating collections of products for customers shopping online.\u003C\/p\u003E\r\n\r\n\u003Cp\u003E\u0026ldquo;They have a huge amount of data, and you can do interesting recommendations based on the data you have,\u0026rdquo; Ahsan said. \u0026ldquo;Thankfully, I have the right combination of skills that they needed \u0026mdash; computer vision expertise and some natural language processing experience \u0026mdash; so, I can combine those skills to help recommend products based on what the customer is shopping for at the moment. So far, I am really enjoying myself!\u0026rdquo;\u003C\/p\u003E\r\n\r\n\u003Cp\u003EZafar studies robotics and is interested in designing control algorithms for generating stable, safe, and useful behaviors of robotic systems. \u0026nbsp;\u003C\/p\u003E\r\n\r\n\u003Cp\u003EHis interest in robotics began during his undergraduate years. He wanted to pursue a field that has direct application and widespread support in Pakistan, because he and Ahsan plan to establish a working collaboration with their home country through academia and\/or entrepreneurship.\u003C\/p\u003E\r\n\r\n\u003Cp\u003E\u0026ldquo;It won\u0026rsquo;t be difficult to have a career in robotics in Pakistan,\u0026rdquo; he said.\u003C\/p\u003E\r\n\r\n\u003Cp\u003EAhsan said she dreams of going back into academia someday.\u003C\/p\u003E\r\n\r\n\u003Cp\u003E\u0026ldquo;I have seen successful examples of people who have one foot in academia and one foot in industry. It has worked out wonderfully for some of our faculty,\u0026rdquo; she said. \u0026ldquo;If that option opens up, I can definitely pursue that.\u0026rdquo;\u003C\/p\u003E\r\n\r\n\u003Cp\u003EAmong the things Ahsan will miss most about Georgia Tech are the aura of campus life and having access to the latest research journals and papers. Zafar, who defended his thesis this month and will be hooded in the fall, said he will miss the people he worked with, conducting research, and spending time with the robots.\u003C\/p\u003E\r\n\r\n\u003Cp\u003EAhsan said she is most excited about the Ph.D. hooding ceremony at Commencement.\u003C\/p\u003E\r\n\r\n\u003Cp\u003E\u0026ldquo;For me, it\u0026rsquo;s a very big deal because there were so many times during the program that I thought: \u0026lsquo;I\u0026rsquo;m never going to be able to do it.\u0026rsquo; So, the hooding ceremony is a formal acknowledgement that I made it.\u0026rdquo;\u003C\/p\u003E\r\n\r\n\u003Cp\u003EAhsan\u0026rsquo;s aunt from Pakistan will attend the ceremony. Her parents and Zafar\u0026rsquo;s parents will watch the livestream from Pakistan.\u003C\/p\u003E\r\n\r\n\u003Cp\u003E\u0026nbsp;\u003C\/p\u003E\r\n\r\n\u003Cp\u003E\u0026nbsp;\u003C\/p\u003E\r\n","summary":null,"format":"limited_html"}],"field_subtitle":"","field_summary":"","field_summary_sentence":[{"value":"Unaiza Ahsan and Munzir Zafar are a married couple in Tech\u0027s doctoral program."}],"uid":"27713","created_gmt":"2019-04-29 13:35:52","changed_gmt":"2019-05-03 13:48:35","author":"Victor Rogers","boilerplate_text":"","field_publication":"","field_article_url":"","dateline":{"date":"2019-04-29T00:00:00-04:00","iso_date":"2019-04-29T00:00:00-04:00","tz":"America\/New_York"},"extras":[],"hg_media":{"621010":{"id":"621010","type":"image","title":"Unaiza Ahsan with poster ","body":null,"created":"1556551641","gmt_created":"2019-04-29 15:27:21","changed":"1556551665","gmt_changed":"2019-04-29 15:27:45","alt":"Unaiza Ahsan with poster","file":{"fid":"236528","name":"img3-poster.jpg","image_path":"\/sites\/default\/files\/images\/img3-poster.jpg","image_full_path":"http:\/\/hg.gatech.edu\/\/sites\/default\/files\/images\/img3-poster.jpg","mime":"image\/jpeg","size":282550,"path_740":"http:\/\/hg.gatech.edu\/sites\/default\/files\/styles\/740xx_scale\/public\/images\/img3-poster.jpg?itok=-LifqKQ8"}},"621001":{"id":"621001","type":"image","title":"Unaiza Ahsan wearing \u0022propeller headed device\u0022 ","body":null,"created":"1556549378","gmt_created":"2019-04-29 14:49:38","changed":"1556549423","gmt_changed":"2019-04-29 14:50:23","alt":"Unaiza Ahsan wearing \u0022propeller headed device\u0022 ","file":{"fid":"236523","name":"img4-propellerheadeddevicePHD.jpg","image_path":"\/sites\/default\/files\/images\/img4-propellerheadeddevicePHD.jpg","image_full_path":"http:\/\/hg.gatech.edu\/\/sites\/default\/files\/images\/img4-propellerheadeddevicePHD.jpg","mime":"image\/jpeg","size":280144,"path_740":"http:\/\/hg.gatech.edu\/sites\/default\/files\/styles\/740xx_scale\/public\/images\/img4-propellerheadeddevicePHD.jpg?itok=-cc52-Ih"}},"621012":{"id":"621012","type":"image","title":"Munzir Zafar after defending his thesis","body":null,"created":"1556551927","gmt_created":"2019-04-29 15:32:07","changed":"1556551949","gmt_changed":"2019-04-29 15:32:29","alt":"Unaiza Ahsan and Munzir Zafar, after he defended his thesis","file":{"fid":"236529","name":"IMG_20190424_130258090_BURST000_COVER_TOP.jpg","image_path":"\/sites\/default\/files\/images\/IMG_20190424_130258090_BURST000_COVER_TOP.jpg","image_full_path":"http:\/\/hg.gatech.edu\/\/sites\/default\/files\/images\/IMG_20190424_130258090_BURST000_COVER_TOP.jpg","mime":"image\/jpeg","size":1196227,"path_740":"http:\/\/hg.gatech.edu\/sites\/default\/files\/styles\/740xx_scale\/public\/images\/IMG_20190424_130258090_BURST000_COVER_TOP.jpg?itok=AmDASAtI"}}},"media_ids":["621010","621001","621012"],"groups":[{"id":"1317","name":"News Briefs"}],"categories":[{"id":"129","name":"Institute and Campus"}],"keywords":[{"id":"181151","name":"Unaiza Ahsan"},{"id":"181152","name":"Munzir Zafar"}],"core_research_areas":[],"news_room_topics":[{"id":"71871","name":"Campus and Community"},{"id":"71881","name":"Science and Technology"}],"event_categories":[],"invited_audience":[],"affiliations":[],"classification":[],"areas_of_expertise":[],"news_and_recent_appearances":[],"phone":[],"contact":[{"value":"\u003Cp\u003EVictor Rogers\u003C\/p\u003E\r\n\r\n\u003Cp\u003EInstitute Communications\u003C\/p\u003E\r\n","format":"limited_html"}],"email":["victor.rogers@comm.gatech.edu"],"slides":[],"orientation":[],"userdata":""}},"614794":{"#nid":"614794","#data":{"type":"news","title":"Tech Ranks Among Top Universities Globally in Computer Science, Engineering","body":[{"value":"\u003Cp\u003EGeorgia Tech has made the Top 10 in global rankings in the key subject areas of computer science and engineering.\u003C\/p\u003E\r\n\r\n\u003Cp\u003EIn the latest \u003Cem\u003ETimes Higher Education\u003C\/em\u003E subject rankings for computer science, the Institute is ranked seventh internationally. Tech was the top American public university on the list. Ranked just behind Stanford University, MIT, and the United Kingdom\u0026rsquo;s University of Oxford and University of Cambridge, its computer science program landed ahead of both Harvard and Princeton.\u003C\/p\u003E\r\n\r\n\u003Cp\u003EIn the engineering rankings, Georgia Tech appeared in the Top 10, and was also the top-rated public American university.\u003C\/p\u003E\r\n\r\n\u003Cp\u003EThe London-based \u003Cem\u003ETimes Higher Education\u003C\/em\u003E has been providing ranked data on international universities since 2004. Their 2018-19 research includes more than 1,250 higher education institutions from 86 nations.\u0026nbsp;\u003C\/p\u003E\r\n\r\n\u003Cp\u003E\u0026nbsp;\u003C\/p\u003E\r\n\r\n\u003Cp\u003EGeorgia Tech\u0026rsquo;s full rankings:\u003C\/p\u003E\r\n\r\n\u003Cp\u003EComputer Science: 7\u003C\/p\u003E\r\n\r\n\u003Cp\u003EEngineering: 10\u003C\/p\u003E\r\n\r\n\u003Cp\u003EPhysical Science: 44\u003C\/p\u003E\r\n\r\n\u003Cp\u003EBusiness and Economics: 51\u003C\/p\u003E\r\n\r\n\u003Cp\u003ESocial Sciences: 72\u003C\/p\u003E\r\n\r\n\u003Cp\u003EPsychology: 100\u003C\/p\u003E\r\n\r\n\u003Cp\u003ETo see the full rankings in detail, visit:\u003C\/p\u003E\r\n\r\n\u003Cp\u003E\u0026bull; Engineering \u0026amp; Technology \u003Ca href=\u0022https:\/\/tes.us17.list-manage.com\/track\/click?u=8e09f1eff5b946b07c80f522d\u0026amp;id=b8eab31d8b\u0026amp;e=777bf0e0f0\u0022 target=\u0022_blank\u0022\u003Ehttps:\/\/www.timeshighereducation.com\/world-university-rankings\/2019\/subject-ranking\/engineering-and-IT\u003C\/a\u003E\u003Cbr \/\u003E\r\n\u0026bull; Computer Science \u003Ca href=\u0022https:\/\/tes.us17.list-manage.com\/track\/click?u=8e09f1eff5b946b07c80f522d\u0026amp;id=c68057717e\u0026amp;e=777bf0e0f0\u0022 target=\u0022_blank\u0022\u003Ehttps:\/\/www.timeshighereducation.com\/world-university-rankings\/2019\/subject-ranking\/computer-science\u003C\/a\u003E\u003C\/p\u003E\r\n","summary":null,"format":"limited_html"}],"field_subtitle":"","field_summary":"","field_summary_sentence":[{"value":"Georgia Tech was the top American public institution in both rankings from the Times Higher Education."}],"uid":"28058","created_gmt":"2018-11-29 21:50:26","changed_gmt":"2018-11-29 21:52:50","author":"Steven Norris","boilerplate_text":"","field_publication":"","field_article_url":"","dateline":{"date":"2018-11-29T00:00:00-05:00","iso_date":"2018-11-29T00:00:00-05:00","tz":"America\/New_York"},"extras":[],"hg_media":{"614795":{"id":"614795","type":"image","title":"Tech Tops in Times Higher Education World University Rankings","body":null,"created":"1543528327","gmt_created":"2018-11-29 21:52:07","changed":"1543528327","gmt_changed":"2018-11-29 21:52:07","alt":"","file":{"fid":"234080","name":"10P1000-P22-008.jpg","image_path":"\/sites\/default\/files\/images\/10P1000-P22-008_0.jpg","image_full_path":"http:\/\/hg.gatech.edu\/\/sites\/default\/files\/images\/10P1000-P22-008_0.jpg","mime":"image\/jpeg","size":631337,"path_740":"http:\/\/hg.gatech.edu\/sites\/default\/files\/styles\/740xx_scale\/public\/images\/10P1000-P22-008_0.jpg?itok=c1tvezrM"}}},"media_ids":["614795"],"groups":[{"id":"1214","name":"News Room"}],"categories":[],"keywords":[{"id":"109","name":"Georgia Tech"},{"id":"246","name":"Georgia Institute of Technology"},{"id":"834","name":"Rankings"},{"id":"100341","name":"academic world rankings"},{"id":"60831","name":"Times Higher Education World Rankings"},{"id":"179213","name":"Times Higher Education World University Rankings"},{"id":"1051","name":"Computer Science"},{"id":"516","name":"engineering"}],"core_research_areas":[],"news_room_topics":[{"id":"71871","name":"Campus and Community"}],"event_categories":[],"invited_audience":[],"affiliations":[],"classification":[],"areas_of_expertise":[],"news_and_recent_appearances":[],"phone":[],"contact":[{"value":"\u003Cp\u003ESteven Norris\u003C\/p\u003E\r\n\r\n\u003Cp\u003EInstitute Communications\u003C\/p\u003E\r\n\r\n\u003Cp\u003E\u0026nbsp;\u003C\/p\u003E\r\n","format":"limited_html"}],"email":["snorris@gatech.edu "],"slides":[],"orientation":[],"userdata":""}},"613449":{"#nid":"613449","#data":{"type":"news","title":"HackGT Fast-Tracks Student Inventors","body":[{"value":"\u003Cp\u003EFor the uninitiated, a hackathon is an exercise in collaboration. People get creative through the power and potential of technology \u0026shy;\u0026ndash; and teams consider a problem or an idea and then develop websites, apps, and other high-tech solutions to address it. Think of it as a high-tech invention marathon.\u003C\/p\u003E\r\n\r\n\u003Cp\u003EIt is no surprise that for the past five years Georgia Tech has hosted one of the largest collegiate hackathons in the U.S., or that dozens of companies have lined up to sponsor the event, including Facebook, Lyft, GM, Disney, Microsoft, Coca-Cola, and NCR, among others.\u003C\/p\u003E\r\n\r\n\u003Cp\u003EThis year, more than 1,000 participants from 80 different colleges and institutions gathered on the \u003Ca href=\u0022https:\/\/2018.hack.gt\/?fbclid=IwAR0rTnnM4lWpZ0MmuuobqS4F3CvEY_9eLqr3xHc0aCdQijrvAyCcwiA0TgE\u0022\u003ETech campus for HackGT\u003C\/a\u003E.\u003C\/p\u003E\r\n\r\n\u003Cp\u003EFrom Oct. 19 to 21, as student teams worked nonstop on formulating their ideas and developing their projects, HackGT provided workshops and fireside chats with event sponsors, as well as mentors from business and industry to share their guidance and expertise.\u003C\/p\u003E\r\n\r\n\u003Cp\u003ENew to the world of hackathons? No problem. Georgia Tech\u0026rsquo;s student organizers say they wanted to create an environment in which everyone felt welcome. Forty-four percent of the attendees at this year\u0026rsquo;s hackathon were newcomers.\u0026nbsp;\u003C\/p\u003E\r\n\r\n\u003Cp\u003EWinning projects were selected at the end of three days \u0026mdash; and they were unfailingly impressive, especially given the time constraints.\u003C\/p\u003E\r\n\r\n\u003Cp\u003EFour students from four different schools developed a tool they call Vocapture. It uses computer vision to identify objects to help English learners expand their vocabulary. The technology incorporates a smartphone camera to provide real-time text identifying the objects in view. (In one demonstration, \u0026ldquo;chair,\u0026rdquo; \u0026ldquo;desk,\u0026rdquo; \u0026ldquo;table,\u0026rdquo; and \u0026ldquo;door\u0026rdquo; appeared when scanning a classroom.)\u003C\/p\u003E\r\n\r\n\u003Cp\u003EThe team noted that 2 billion people will be learning English by 2020, and hoped a tool like this might give them an advantage in honing their language skills.\u003C\/p\u003E\r\n\r\n\u003Cp\u003EA student from Auburn University spent his hackathon weekend developing a bot to write a freestyle rap on any given topic. WikiBeat uses natural language processing to scan for information from the internet and matches phrases up into couplets, then lays down a beat to match the generated lyrics.\u003C\/p\u003E\r\n\r\n\u003Cp\u003E\u0026nbsp;\u003Ca href=\u0022https:\/\/hack.gt\/events\/\u0022\u003ETo learn more about HackGT and related events, click here\u003C\/a\u003E.\u003C\/p\u003E\r\n","summary":null,"format":"limited_html"}],"field_subtitle":"","field_summary":[{"value":"\u003Cp\u003EHackGT is one of America\u0026#39;s largest student-run hackathons, giving student innovators the opportunity to build and share creations over the course of a weekend in a relaxed and high-energy atmosphere.\u003C\/p\u003E\r\n","format":"limited_html"}],"field_summary_sentence":[{"value":"More than 1,000 students from 80 different schools came to Georgia Tech for a weekend of fast-paced ideation and innovation. "}],"uid":"28058","created_gmt":"2018-10-29 20:31:44","changed_gmt":"2018-10-29 21:10:43","author":"Steven Norris","boilerplate_text":"","field_publication":"","field_article_url":"","dateline":{"date":"2018-10-29T00:00:00-04:00","iso_date":"2018-10-29T00:00:00-04:00","tz":"America\/New_York"},"extras":[],"hg_media":{"613451":{"id":"613451","type":"image","title":"HackGT Fast-Tracks Student Inventors","body":null,"created":"1540845518","gmt_created":"2018-10-29 20:38:38","changed":"1540845518","gmt_changed":"2018-10-29 20:38:38","alt":"HackGT is a weekend innovation event held at Georgia Tech. Students camped out in the floor of Klaus to take part. ","file":{"fid":"233540","name":"44964279_1549299465169894_5105872656381509632_o.jpg","image_path":"\/sites\/default\/files\/images\/44964279_1549299465169894_5105872656381509632_o.jpg","image_full_path":"http:\/\/hg.gatech.edu\/\/sites\/default\/files\/images\/44964279_1549299465169894_5105872656381509632_o.jpg","mime":"image\/jpeg","size":332151,"path_740":"http:\/\/hg.gatech.edu\/sites\/default\/files\/styles\/740xx_scale\/public\/images\/44964279_1549299465169894_5105872656381509632_o.jpg?itok=tRhGqnii"}}},"media_ids":["613451"],"groups":[{"id":"1214","name":"News Room"}],"categories":[],"keywords":[{"id":"109","name":"Georgia Tech"},{"id":"246","name":"Georgia Institute of Technology"},{"id":"61371","name":"Hackathon"},{"id":"98591","name":"hackgt"},{"id":"179540","name":"innovaiton"},{"id":"3472","name":"entrepreneurship"},{"id":"1182","name":"Invention"}],"core_research_areas":[],"news_room_topics":[{"id":"71871","name":"Campus and Community"},{"id":"71881","name":"Science and Technology"}],"event_categories":[],"invited_audience":[],"affiliations":[],"classification":[],"areas_of_expertise":[],"news_and_recent_appearances":[],"phone":[],"contact":[{"value":"\u003Cp\u003ESteven Norris\u003C\/p\u003E\r\n\r\n\u003Cp\u003EGeorgia Tech Social Media\u0026nbsp;\u003C\/p\u003E\r\n\r\n\u003Cp\u003E\u0026nbsp;\u003C\/p\u003E\r\n","format":"limited_html"}],"email":["snorris@gatech.edu "],"slides":[],"orientation":[],"userdata":""}},"606918":{"#nid":"606918","#data":{"type":"news","title":"Dean Zvi Galil to Step Down After 18-19 Academic Year ","body":[{"value":"\u003Cp\u003EZvi Galil, John P. Imlay Jr. Chair and dean of the Georgia Tech College of Computing, has announced his intentions to serve one final academic year. Galil will step down on June 30, 2019.\u003C\/p\u003E\r\n\r\n\u003Cp\u003EGalil became dean of the College of Computing at Georgia Tech in July 2010. Under his leadership, the College of Computing has seen significant enrollment growth at the undergraduate and graduate levels, achievement in interdisciplinary research and thought leadership, goal-breaking fundraising efforts, and the development and continued success of the Online Master of Science in Computer Science (OMSCS) program.\u003C\/p\u003E\r\n\r\n\u003Cp\u003E\u0026ldquo;The College of Computing at Georgia Tech has enjoyed extraordinary successes and become one of the very best in the world under Dean Galil\u0026rsquo;s leadership,\u0026rdquo; said Rafael L. Bras, Georgia Tech provost and executive vice president for Academic Affairs and K. Harrison Brown Family Chair. \u0026ldquo;He has expertly guided the College through tremendous growth, and I expect that trajectory will continue during his last year of service. I am grateful we will have ample time to search for a new dean while the College remains under Dean Galil\u0026rsquo;s guidance.\u0026rdquo;\u003C\/p\u003E\r\n\r\n\u003Cp\u003EDetails on the search process for the next dean will be announced later this summer.\u003C\/p\u003E\r\n","summary":null,"format":"limited_html"}],"field_subtitle":"","field_summary":[{"value":"\u003Cp\u003EZvi Galil, John P. Imlay Jr. Chair and dean of the Georgia Tech College of Computing, has announced his intentions to serve one final academic year. Galil will step down on June 30, 2019.\u003C\/p\u003E\r\n","format":"limited_html"}],"field_summary_sentence":[{"value":"Zvi Galil, John P. Imlay Jr. Chair and dean of the Georgia Tech College of Computing, has announced his intentions to serve one final academic year. Galil will step down on June 30, 2019. "}],"uid":"27165","created_gmt":"2018-06-12 12:36:40","changed_gmt":"2018-06-12 12:57:06","author":"Susie Ivy","boilerplate_text":"","field_publication":"","field_article_url":"","dateline":{"date":"2018-06-12T00:00:00-04:00","iso_date":"2018-06-12T00:00:00-04:00","tz":"America\/New_York"},"extras":[],"hg_media":{"350131":{"id":"350131","type":"image","title":"Zvi Galil compressed","body":null,"created":"1449245702","gmt_created":"2015-12-04 16:15:02","changed":"1475895075","gmt_changed":"2016-10-08 02:51:15","alt":"Zvi Galil compressed","file":{"fid":"201080","name":"zvi-galil_0.jpg","image_path":"\/sites\/default\/files\/images\/zvi-galil_0_0.jpg","image_full_path":"http:\/\/hg.gatech.edu\/\/sites\/default\/files\/images\/zvi-galil_0_0.jpg","mime":"image\/jpeg","size":12446,"path_740":"http:\/\/hg.gatech.edu\/sites\/default\/files\/styles\/740xx_scale\/public\/images\/zvi-galil_0_0.jpg?itok=97lu0vCB"}}},"media_ids":["350131"],"groups":[{"id":"131901","name":"Provost"}],"categories":[{"id":"129","name":"Institute and Campus"}],"keywords":[{"id":"208","name":"computing"},{"id":"2078","name":"dean"},{"id":"288","name":"Leadership"}],"core_research_areas":[],"news_room_topics":[{"id":"71871","name":"Campus and Community"}],"event_categories":[],"invited_audience":[],"affiliations":[],"classification":[],"areas_of_expertise":[],"news_and_recent_appearances":[],"phone":[],"contact":[{"value":"\u003Cp\u003E\u003Ca href=\u0022mailto:susie.ivy@comm.gatech.edu\u0022\u003ESusie Ivy\u003C\/a\u003E\u003C\/p\u003E\r\n\r\n\u003Cp\u003EInstitute Communications\u003C\/p\u003E\r\n\r\n\u003Cp\u003E404-385-3782\u003C\/p\u003E\r\n","format":"limited_html"}],"email":["susie.ivy@comm.gatech.edu"],"slides":[],"orientation":[],"userdata":""}},"689586":{"#nid":"689586","#data":{"type":"news","title":"Computing Associate Dean Cultivates Innovation With CREATE-X","body":[{"value":"\u003Cp\u003EWhen Olufisayo \u201cFisayo\u201d Omojokun joined Georgia Tech, his teaching followed a familiar cadence. His courses were highly structured and consistent. Lectures, exams, office hours, and semester breaks were always known months in advance. The goals were clear, the outcomes known, and the educational journey largely mapped. Then, he heard about \u003Ca href=\u0022https:\/\/createx.gatech.edu\u0022\u003ECREATE-X\u003C\/a\u003E.\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Ch2\u003EA Spark of Curiosity\u003C\/h2\u003E\u003Cp\u003EIn 2017, faculty conversations began circulating about a new kind of capstone experience, one driven by student discovery and entrepreneurial thinking rather than predetermined client requirements. The idea intrigued Omojokun.\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003E\u201cI remember thinking, this is really different from anything I\u2019ve ever taught,\u201d he said.\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003EIn his previous courses, Omojokun took pride in providing the structured, rigorous framework students needed to master complex concepts. While those interactions were dynamic, the curriculum required a specific, focused trajectory. CREATE-X offered a different kind of challenge: the \u0022X\u0022 of the program, representing undefined, endless potential.\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003E\u201cCREATE-X is full of unknowns. You don\u2019t know what industry the students are diving into, what roadblocks they\u2019ll run into and navigate out of, or what small- to large-scale successes they\u2019ll achieve throughout the semester. It really had my blood pumping,\u201d he said. As someone who loves the challenge of academia, it was an invigorating way to help the next generation apply what they\u2019ve learned in a new context.\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003EOmojokun co-taught the first CREATE-X Capstone section with College of Computing students in fall 2018 alongside Craig Forest, associate director of the Invention Studio. While the initial computer science cohort was small, the experience was immediately powerful.\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003E\u201cIt was humble beginnings but deeply eye-opening,\u201d he said.\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003EIn this new environment, students weren\u0027t just solving problems; they were seeking them and sometimes pivoting. Traditional client-driven capstones offer students invaluable experiences in delivering high-quality products, responding to clients\u2019 often evolving needs, and adhering to professional standards. CREATE-X added a layer of venture-validation, requiring students to identify a gap in the market and build something with commercial viability.\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003EAs the semesters continued, CREATE-X grew from a program with an interesting capstone course Omojokun enthusiastically co-taught to a professional inflection point for him. He found himself talking about it frequently, with colleagues, with students, even with prospective undergraduates who may not see a capstone for years.\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003EHe began encouraging prospective and incoming students to take CREATE-X pathways.\u0026nbsp;\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003E\u201cI would tell students, down to first-year students, when you get that opportunity to engage with CREATE-X, take it. You don\u2019t even have to wait until capstone, as there are multiple pathways; in fact, Startup Lab has no prerequisites. Whatever path you take, you\u2019ll remember it for years to come. Whether you officially take a problem solution to market or not, the entrepreneurial confidence gained is priceless.\u201d\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Ch2\u003ESpreading CREATE-X Into the College of Computing\u003C\/h2\u003E\u003Cp\u003EBy 2020, when the first Jim Pope Faculty Fellowship cohort opened, applying felt natural. He had already become an unofficial ambassador for CREATE-X, helping students navigate options, promoting programs in classes, and rallying colleagues to engage.\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003E\u201cIt was an opportunity to become more connected to this thing that I felt was changing the game on campus,\u201d he said. \u201cIt cemented my affiliation with CREATE-X.\u201d\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003EThe fellowship gave name and weight to the work he was already doing, while also expanding what was possible.\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003EThe Jim Pope Faculty Fellowship provides faculty with $15,000 in discretionary funding, which can support a one-semester break from teaching, along with structured training in evidence\u2011based entrepreneurship, dedicated mentorship, and the opportunity to work closely with students launching startups.\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003EThe fellowship also equips faculty to become entrepreneurial instructors and mentors through the CREATE\u2011X ecosystem, giving them tools to integrate entrepreneurship into their coursework and curricula. Each cohort of fellows is trained to embed entrepreneurial methods, develop new innovation\u2011focused assignments, and serve as advisors within programs like Startup Lab, Idea\u2011to\u2011Prototype, and Startup Launch.\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003EFor faculty across Georgia Tech, the fellowship offers something rare: institutional backing, resources, and formal recognition for bringing entrepreneurship into their teaching and shaping how students learn to become problem\u2011solvers.\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003EOmojokun said he sees CREATE-X as the apex of applying technical fundamentals.\u0026nbsp;\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003EAs part of the fellowship, Omojokun brought the program\u2019s ethos into his courses, even a foundational course like CS 1331: Introduction to Object Oriented Programming, where he created a CREATE-X\u2013branded final project. Students built a \u201cproblem database\u201d application as their final homework assignment, cataloging real issues they encountered in daily life, assessing their skills to solve them, evaluating markets and metrics, and then deciding potential pathways forward.\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003E\u201cIt\u2019s an innovation diary,\u201d he said. \u201cA tool that can get them closer to thinking like a founder.\u201d\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003EThe response from students, including many non-computing majors who take his section each semester, has been overwhelmingly positive. While the project is challenging, the open-ended nature and real-world relevance motivate deeper engagement.\u0026nbsp;\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003E\u201cWhen students believe their work will solve a meaningful problem for a meaningful population, they bring passion to it,\u201d he said. \u201cThey start observing the world differently.\u201d\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003EThe more Omojokun saw, the deeper his enthusiasm grew.\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Ch2\u003EShaping the College of Computing\u003C\/h2\u003E\u003Cp\u003EEven as he stepped into the role of inaugural chair of the School of Computing Instruction in 2022, CREATE-X remained at the forefront of Omojokun\u2019s conversations. Interest in the program continued to grow significantly. Students stopped him in the hallways to talk about their ideas. Faculty reached out to ask about mentorship opportunities. And he continued championing the program in the many settings he entered.\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003E\u201cIt turns out that the most engaged group of students in CREATE-X is computing undergraduates,\u201d Omojokun said. \u201cI wanted to make sure that high involvement continued, no matter what size we are,\u201d he said.\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003EOver time, Omojokun strengthened the partnership between the College of Computing and CREATE-X, weaving entrepreneurship deeper into the College\u0027s curricular fabric.\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003ELast January, Omojokun was appointed as the associate dean for Undergraduate Education in the College of Computing. One of his priorities was highlighting CREATE-X\u2019s curricular impact. In coordination with key stakeholders \u2014 including Kelly Ann Fitzpatrick (computing), Craig Forest (mechanical engineering), and Raul Saxena (CREATE-X) \u2014 he nominated the program for the ABET Innovation Award. \u0026nbsp;The award honors programs that challenge the status quo in technical education and demonstrate a measurable impact on student learning in ABET-accredited disciplines, such as natural sciences, computing, engineering, and engineering technology. CREATE-X won.\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Ch2\u003EThe CREATE-X Advantage With Faculty\u0026nbsp;\u003C\/h2\u003E\u003Cp\u003EWhen faculty are considering something like the Jim Pope Fellowship, Omojokun said the biggest barrier he hears about from them is time. With courses that can enroll 300 students per section and extensive responsibilities beyond the classroom, time is a scarce resource.\u003Cbr\u003EHe could relate.\u0026nbsp;\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003E\u201cThere are always lots of things on my physical and virtual desktop. I always warn people before they enter my office,\u201d he said.\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003EHowever, Omojokun argued that participating in the fellowship program was time well spent because it helps them rediscover the most exciting parts of teaching.\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003E\u201cIt\u2019s worth the time. One of the goals of teaching is to see students passionate about what they\u2019re learning, and CREATE-X makes that happen consistently,\u201d he said.\u0026nbsp;\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Ch2\u003EThe Future With Technology\u003C\/h2\u003E\u003Cp\u003EAs AI reshapes industries, Omojokun believes that CREATE-X equips students to navigate the unknown and forge new paths as existing ones shift, providing a versatile skill set that transfers to employment, potentially self-employment, and beyond.\u0026nbsp;\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003E\u201cThere\u2019s a lot of uncertainty with AI in the workspace, but CREATE-X gives students the confidence and skills to succeed at whatever comes,\u201d he said. \u201cWe are putting students through this process of finding a problem that\u2019s meaningful and matters to the world; mastering that allows them to lead in any environment.\u201d\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Ch2\u003EApplications Now Open: Become a Jim Pope Faculty Fellow\u003C\/h2\u003E\u003Cp\u003EThe \u003Ca href=\u0022https:\/\/gatech.co1.qualtrics.com\/jfe\/form\/SV_8cOnwIrm4eKEh9Q\u0022\u003E2026 Jim Pope Faculty Fellowship\u003C\/a\u003E is now accepting applications. For faculty who want to explore integrating entrepreneurship into their teaching, mentoring student founders, and helping shape a culture of innovation across campus, this fellowship offers resources and a supported pathway to begin. Faculty from all disciplines are encouraged to \u003Ca href=\u0022https:\/\/gatech.co1.qualtrics.com\/jfe\/form\/SV_8cOnwIrm4eKEh9Q\u0022\u003Eapply to the Jim Pope Fellowship\u003C\/a\u003E. Priority deadline: July 1; final deadline: Aug. 11.\u003C\/p\u003E","summary":"","format":"limited_html"}],"field_subtitle":"","field_summary":[{"value":"\u003Cp\u003EWhen Olufisayo \u201cFisayo\u201d Omojokun first encountered CREATE\u2011X, it challenged the highly structured teaching model he was accustomed to by centering learning around uncertainty, discovery, and entrepreneurial problem\u2011finding. As a faculty member, Jim Pope Faculty Fellow, and now associate dean in the College of Computing, he has championed CREATE\u2011X as a powerful way to help students apply technical fundamentals in unpredictable, real\u2011world contexts. Through initiatives like CREATE\u2011X\u2013inspired course projects and cross\u2011college partnerships, Omojokun has helped embed entrepreneurship more deeply into computing education at Georgia Tech. He believes programs like CREATE\u2011X are essential in preparing students to adapt, lead, and innovate in a future increasingly shaped by emerging technologies such as AI.\u003C\/p\u003E","format":"limited_html"}],"field_summary_sentence":[{"value":"Olufisayo \u201cFisayo\u201d Omojokun, Georgia Tech associate dean in the College of Computing, found new energy in teaching through CREATE\u2011X, where open\u2011ended entrepreneurship equips students to confidently navigate uncertainty and solve real\u2011world problems."}],"uid":"36436","created_gmt":"2026-04-09 13:46:31","changed_gmt":"2026-04-17 16:21:57","author":"bdurham31","boilerplate_text":"","field_publication":"","field_article_url":"","location":"Atlanta, GA","dateline":{"date":"2026-04-09T00:00:00-04:00","iso_date":"2026-04-09T00:00:00-04:00","tz":"America\/New_York"},"extras":[],"hg_media":{"679902":{"id":"679902","type":"image","title":" Olufisayo \u201cFisayo\u201d Omojokun Associate Dean ","body":"\u003Cdiv\u003EOlufisayo \u201cFisayo\u201d Omojokun, associate dean in Georgia Tech\u2019s College of Computing\u003C\/div\u003E","created":"1775741406","gmt_created":"2026-04-09 13:30:06","changed":"1775742590","gmt_changed":"2026-04-09 13:49:50","alt":" Olufisayo \u201cFisayo\u201d Omojokun, associate dean in Georgia Tech\u2019s College of Computing","file":{"fid":"264123","name":"FisayoCloseUp-23-.png","image_path":"\/sites\/default\/files\/2026\/04\/09\/FisayoCloseUp-23-.png","image_full_path":"http:\/\/hg.gatech.edu\/\/sites\/default\/files\/2026\/04\/09\/FisayoCloseUp-23-.png","mime":"image\/png","size":477042,"path_740":"http:\/\/hg.gatech.edu\/sites\/default\/files\/styles\/740xx_scale\/public\/2026\/04\/09\/FisayoCloseUp-23-.png?itok=3qsEriy1"}}},"media_ids":["679902"],"related_links":[{"url":"https:\/\/gatech.co1.qualtrics.com\/jfe\/form\/SV_8cOnwIrm4eKEh9Q","title":"2026 Jim Pope Faculty Fellowship "}],"groups":[{"id":"583966","name":"CREATE-X"},{"id":"655285","name":"GT Commercialization"},{"id":"1188","name":"Research Horizons"}],"categories":[{"id":"139","name":"Business"},{"id":"42911","name":"Education"},{"id":"134","name":"Student and Faculty"}],"keywords":[],"core_research_areas":[{"id":"193658","name":"Commercialization"}],"news_room_topics":[{"id":"106361","name":"Business and Economic Development"}],"event_categories":[],"invited_audience":[],"affiliations":[],"classification":[],"areas_of_expertise":[],"news_and_recent_appearances":[],"phone":[],"contact":[{"value":"\u003Cp\u003E\u003Ca href=\u0022mailto:breanna.durham@gatech.edu\u0022\u003EBreanna Durham\u003C\/a\u003E\u003Cbr\u003EMarketing Strategist\u003Cbr\u003EGeorgia Tech\u003C\/p\u003E","format":"limited_html"}],"email":[],"slides":[],"orientation":[],"userdata":""}},"689757":{"#nid":"689757","#data":{"type":"news","title":"This New Tool Makes AI\u2019s Role in Student Writing Visible","body":[{"value":"\u003Cp\u003EGenerative artificial intelligence (AI) has transformed college writing. As paper drafts are increasingly co\u2011written with AI, professors are left wondering not whether students are using AI, but how.\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003EA 2025 \u003Cem\u003EAI in Education\u003C\/em\u003E trend\u0026nbsp;\u003Ca href=\u0022https:\/\/copyleaks.com\/blog\/ai-in-action-2025-student-ai-usage-report\u0022\u003Ereport\u003C\/a\u003E found that 90% of college students use AI in their coursework, with nearly half using it during the drafting process. As AI becomes embedded in everyday writing, traditional tools like Grammarly or Turnitin for evaluating student learning fall short. If AI is to be expected in most student writing, then merely detecting its presence isn\u2019t enough.\u0026nbsp;\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003EDraftMarks, a new open\u2011source tool developed by Georgia Tech and Stanford researchers, makes the writing process itself visible. Instead of trying to assess how much of a finished document was written by AI, DraftMarks shows where a student iterated with AI prompts, what is fully AI, and how a piece evolved \u2014 illuminating the often-invisible collaboration between human writers and AI.\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003EFunctioning as an augmented reading tool, DraftMarks layers visual cues directly onto a document to indicate different kinds of AI involvement. Eraser crumbs mark heavily revised passages. Smudges signal AI-generated changes in the strength of the argument rather than content changes. Masking tape highlights passages initially generated by AI. Glue residue shows where AI\u2011generated text was later removed. Ghost text indicates when a writer prompted AI but chose not to use the output. Different fonts distinguish between human\u2011written and AI\u2011generated passages.\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003ETogether, the marks don\u2019t just reveal AI\u2019s presence. They tell a story about the writer\u2019s process.\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003E\u201cBy making the invisible parts of the process tangible, it forces writers to confront whether they are truly engaging with AI or just passively accepting it,\u201d said Momin Siddiqui, a master\u2019s student in the College of Computing and lead author on the project. \u201cUltimately, it helps writers make more intentional judgment calls about how they want to collaborate with AI in the future.\u201d\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003EThe researchers \u003Ca href=\u0022https:\/\/dl.acm.org\/doi\/10.1145\/3772318.3791109\u0022\u003Edebuted\u003C\/a\u003E DraftMarks at the \u003Ca href=\u0022https:\/\/chi2026.acm.org\/\u0022\u003EAssociation for Computing Machinery\u2019s Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems\u003C\/a\u003E in Barcelona in April.\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003E\u003Cstrong\u003EDesigning for Educators\u003C\/strong\u003E\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003ERather than starting with detection algorithms, the researchers began with educators. In an initial 21-person study, they observed how instructors reviewed student writing and what cues they looked for when assessing learning, revision, and originality. Those insights informed the design of DraftMarks\u2019 visual language, which deliberately mimics physical artifacts of writing \u2014 eraser debris, tape, smudges \u2014 to reflect processes instructors already recognize.\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003E\u201cThese marks are meant to emulate the writing process in ways we\u2019re already familiar with,\u201d said Adam Coscia, a computing Ph.D. student. \u201cThey help students and teachers see the effort behind the writing, and whether students actually met the learning objective.\u201d\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003EBehind the scenes, DraftMarks tracks a document\u2019s draft history and classifies different types of edits and AI interactions as they happen, allowing the visual cues to appear almost in real time.\u0026nbsp;\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003E\u003Cstrong\u003EReading DraftMarks\u003C\/strong\u003E\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003ETo evaluate how the tool functions beyond the lab, the team conducted a follow\u2011up study with 70 participants, including students, teachers, journalists, and general readers. Their reactions to reviewing a DraftMarks-annotated document varied in revealing ways.\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003EInstructors were most interested in seeing the writing process unfold: how ideas developed, how heavily AI was used, and where students exercised judgment. General readers, meanwhile, used the marks to assess something less measurable but equally important \u2014 trust. For them, DraftMarks offered cues about authorial intent and authenticity, helping readers decide how much confidence to place in a piece of writing.\u0026nbsp;\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003E\u003Cstrong\u003EA Shift From Detection to Reflection\u003C\/strong\u003E\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003EUnlike AI detectors that merely offer a percentage, DraftMarks is designed to prompt reflection from writers and readers.\u0026nbsp;\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003E\u201cDraftMarks completely changed how I think about my own writing,\u201d Coscia said. \u201cI was surprised by how much I cared about authorial intent once I could actually see how AI affected my tone. It made me realize small AI choices can subtly reshape what I\u2019m trying to say.\u201d\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003EAs AI continues to reshape how writing happens, the research team hopes DraftMarks will help shift the conversation toward transparency. Tools like this could offer educators and students a clearer window into how learning happens when humans and AI write together.\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003E\u0026nbsp;\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003EThis work is funded through the AI Research Institutes program by the National Science Foundation and the Institute of Education Sciences, U.S. Department of Education.\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003ECITATION: Momin N. Siddiqui, Nikki Nasseri, Adam J. Coscia, Roy Pea, and Hari Subramonyam. 2026. DraftMarks: Enhancing Transparency in Human-AI Co-Writing Through Interactive Skeuomorphic Process Traces. In Proceedings of the 2026 CHI Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems (CHI \u002726). Association for Computing Machinery, New York, NY, USA, Article 862, 1\u201322.\u0026nbsp;\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003EDOI: \u003Ca href=\u0022https:\/\/doi.org\/10.1145\/3772318.3791109\u0022\u003Ehttps:\/\/doi.org\/10.1145\/3772318.3791109\u003C\/a\u003E\u003C\/p\u003E","summary":"","format":"limited_html"}],"field_subtitle":"","field_summary":[{"value":"\u003Cp\u003ECreated by Georgia Tech researchers, DraftMarks reveals how AI shapes the writing process and offers a new way to assess learning in the age of generative AI.\u003C\/p\u003E","format":"limited_html"}],"field_summary_sentence":[{"value":"Created by Georgia Tech researchers, DraftMarks reveals how AI shapes the writing process and offers a new way to assess learning in the age of generative AI."}],"uid":"34541","created_gmt":"2026-04-15 13:58:40","changed_gmt":"2026-04-15 14:12:04","author":"Tess Malone","boilerplate_text":"","field_publication":"","field_article_url":"","location":"Atlanta, GA","dateline":{"date":"2026-04-15T00:00:00-04:00","iso_date":"2026-04-15T00:00:00-04:00","tz":"America\/New_York"},"extras":[],"hg_media":{"679951":{"id":"679951","type":"image","title":"dm_iteration.png","body":"\u003Cp\u003EHow DraftMarks works\u003C\/p\u003E","created":"1776261550","gmt_created":"2026-04-15 13:59:10","changed":"1776261550","gmt_changed":"2026-04-15 13:59:10","alt":"Example of draftmarks","file":{"fid":"264177","name":"dm_iteration.png","image_path":"\/sites\/default\/files\/2026\/04\/15\/dm_iteration.png","image_full_path":"http:\/\/hg.gatech.edu\/\/sites\/default\/files\/2026\/04\/15\/dm_iteration.png","mime":"image\/png","size":4123226,"path_740":"http:\/\/hg.gatech.edu\/sites\/default\/files\/styles\/740xx_scale\/public\/2026\/04\/15\/dm_iteration.png?itok=89BUfcUZ"}}},"media_ids":["679951"],"groups":[{"id":"1214","name":"News Room"},{"id":"1188","name":"Research Horizons"}],"categories":[],"keywords":[{"id":"187915","name":"go-researchnews"}],"core_research_areas":[],"news_room_topics":[],"event_categories":[],"invited_audience":[],"affiliations":[],"classification":[],"areas_of_expertise":[],"news_and_recent_appearances":[],"phone":[],"contact":[{"value":"\u003Cp\u003ETess Malone, Senior Research Writer\/Editor\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003Etess.malone@gatech.edu\u003C\/p\u003E","format":"limited_html"}],"email":[],"slides":[],"orientation":[],"userdata":""}},"689999":{"#nid":"689999","#data":{"type":"news","title":"This New Tool Makes AI\u2019s Role in Student Writing Visible","body":[{"value":"\u003Cp\u003EGenerative artificial intelligence (AI) has transformed college writing. As paper drafts are increasingly co\u2011written with AI, professors are left wondering not whether students are using AI, but how.\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003EA 2025 \u003Cem\u003EAI in Education\u003C\/em\u003E trend\u0026nbsp;\u003Ca href=\u0022https:\/\/copyleaks.com\/blog\/ai-in-action-2025-student-ai-usage-report\u0022\u003Ereport\u003C\/a\u003E found that 90% of college students use AI in their coursework, with nearly half using it during the drafting process. As AI becomes embedded in everyday writing, traditional tools like Grammarly or Turnitin for evaluating student learning fall short. If AI is to be expected in most student writing, then merely detecting its presence isn\u2019t enough.\u0026nbsp;\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003EDraftMarks, a new open\u2011source tool developed by Georgia Tech and Stanford researchers, makes the writing process itself visible. Instead of trying to assess how much of a finished document was written by AI, DraftMarks shows where a student iterated with AI prompts, what is fully AI, and how a piece evolved \u2014 illuminating the often-invisible collaboration between human writers and AI.\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003EFunctioning as an augmented reading tool, DraftMarks layers visual cues directly onto a document to indicate different kinds of AI involvement. Eraser crumbs mark heavily revised passages. Smudges signal AI-generated changes in the strength of the argument rather than content changes. Masking tape highlights passages initially generated by AI. Glue residue shows where AI\u2011generated text was later removed. Ghost text indicates when a writer prompted AI but chose not to use the output. Different fonts distinguish between human\u2011written and AI\u2011generated passages.\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003ETogether, the marks don\u2019t just reveal AI\u2019s presence. They tell a story about the writer\u2019s process.\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003E\u201cBy making the invisible parts of the process tangible, it forces writers to confront whether they are truly engaging with AI or just passively accepting it,\u201d said Momin Siddiqui, a master\u2019s student in the College of Computing and lead author on the project. \u201cUltimately, it helps writers make more intentional judgment calls about how they want to collaborate with AI in the future.\u201d\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003EThe researchers \u003Ca href=\u0022https:\/\/dl.acm.org\/doi\/10.1145\/3772318.3791109\u0022\u003Edebuted\u003C\/a\u003E DraftMarks at the \u003Ca href=\u0022https:\/\/chi2026.acm.org\/\u0022\u003EAssociation for Computing Machinery\u2019s Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems\u003C\/a\u003E in Barcelona in April.\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003E\u003Cstrong\u003EDesigning for Educators\u003C\/strong\u003E\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003ERather than starting with detection algorithms, the researchers began with educators. In an initial 21-person study, they observed how instructors reviewed student writing and what cues they looked for when assessing learning, revision, and originality. Those insights informed the design of DraftMarks\u2019 visual language, which deliberately mimics physical artifacts of writing \u2014 eraser debris, tape, smudges \u2014 to reflect processes instructors already recognize.\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003E\u201cThese marks are meant to emulate the writing process in ways we\u2019re already familiar with,\u201d said Adam Coscia, a computing Ph.D. student. \u201cThey help students and teachers see the effort behind the writing, and whether students actually met the learning objective.\u201d\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003EBehind the scenes, DraftMarks tracks a document\u2019s draft history and classifies different types of edits and AI interactions as they happen, allowing the visual cues to appear almost in real time.\u0026nbsp;\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003E\u003Cstrong\u003EReading DraftMarks\u003C\/strong\u003E\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003ETo evaluate how the tool functions beyond the lab, the team conducted a follow\u2011up study with 70 participants, including students, teachers, journalists, and general readers. Their reactions to reviewing a DraftMarks-annotated document varied in revealing ways.\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003EInstructors were most interested in seeing the writing process unfold: how ideas developed, how heavily AI was used, and where students exercised judgment. General readers, meanwhile, used the marks to assess something less measurable but equally important \u2014 trust. For them, DraftMarks offered cues about authorial intent and authenticity, helping readers decide how much confidence to place in a piece of writing.\u0026nbsp;\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003E\u003Cstrong\u003EA Shift From Detection to Reflection\u003C\/strong\u003E\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003EUnlike AI detectors that merely offer a percentage, DraftMarks is designed to prompt reflection from writers and readers.\u0026nbsp;\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003E\u201cDraftMarks completely changed how I think about my own writing,\u201d Coscia said. \u201cI was surprised by how much I cared about authorial intent once I could actually see how AI affected my tone. It made me realize small AI choices can subtly reshape what I\u2019m trying to say.\u201d\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003EAs AI continues to reshape how writing happens, the research team hopes DraftMarks will help shift the conversation toward transparency. Tools like this could offer educators and students a clearer window into how learning happens when humans and AI write together.\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003E\u0026nbsp;\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003EThis work is funded through the AI Research Institutes program by the National Science Foundation and the Institute of Education Sciences, U.S. Department of Education.\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003ECITATION: Momin N. Siddiqui, Nikki Nasseri, Adam J. Coscia, Roy Pea, and Hari Subramonyam. 2026. DraftMarks: Enhancing Transparency in Human-AI Co-Writing Through Interactive Skeuomorphic Process Traces. In Proceedings of the 2026 CHI Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems (CHI \u002726). Association for Computing Machinery, New York, NY, USA, Article 862, 1\u201322.\u0026nbsp;\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003EDOI: \u003Ca href=\u0022https:\/\/doi.org\/10.1145\/3772318.3791109\u0022\u003Ehttps:\/\/doi.org\/10.1145\/3772318.3791109\u003C\/a\u003E\u003C\/p\u003E","summary":"","format":"limited_html"}],"field_subtitle":"","field_summary":[{"value":"\u003Cp\u003ECreated by Georgia Tech researchers, DraftMarks reveals how AI shapes the writing process and offers a new way to assess learning in the age of generative AI.\u003C\/p\u003E","format":"limited_html"}],"field_summary_sentence":[{"value":"Created by Georgia Tech researchers, DraftMarks reveals how AI shapes the writing process and offers a new way to assess learning in the age of generative AI."}],"uid":"32045","created_gmt":"2026-04-24 15:28:27","changed_gmt":"2026-04-24 15:28:27","author":"Ben Snedeker","boilerplate_text":"","field_publication":"","field_article_url":"","location":"Atlanta, GA","dateline":{"date":"2026-04-15T00:00:00-04:00","iso_date":"2026-04-15T00:00:00-04:00","tz":"America\/New_York"},"extras":[],"hg_media":{"679951":{"id":"679951","type":"image","title":"dm_iteration.png","body":"\u003Cp\u003EHow DraftMarks works\u003C\/p\u003E","created":"1776261550","gmt_created":"2026-04-15 13:59:10","changed":"1776261550","gmt_changed":"2026-04-15 13:59:10","alt":"Example of draftmarks","file":{"fid":"264177","name":"dm_iteration.png","image_path":"\/sites\/default\/files\/2026\/04\/15\/dm_iteration.png","image_full_path":"http:\/\/hg.gatech.edu\/\/sites\/default\/files\/2026\/04\/15\/dm_iteration.png","mime":"image\/png","size":4123226,"path_740":"http:\/\/hg.gatech.edu\/sites\/default\/files\/styles\/740xx_scale\/public\/2026\/04\/15\/dm_iteration.png?itok=89BUfcUZ"}}},"media_ids":["679951"],"groups":[{"id":"1214","name":"News Room"},{"id":"1188","name":"Research Horizons"}],"categories":[],"keywords":[{"id":"187915","name":"go-researchnews"}],"core_research_areas":[],"news_room_topics":[],"event_categories":[],"invited_audience":[],"affiliations":[],"classification":[],"areas_of_expertise":[],"news_and_recent_appearances":[],"phone":[],"contact":[{"value":"\u003Cp\u003ETess Malone, Senior Research Writer\/Editor\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003Etess.malone@gatech.edu\u003C\/p\u003E","format":"limited_html"}],"email":[],"slides":[],"orientation":[],"userdata":""}}}